


Why Do We Fall, Emma?

by BooklandReeve



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-07-19
Packaged: 2018-01-26 19:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 37,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1700033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BooklandReeve/pseuds/BooklandReeve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma Swan is a guardian angel who just can't seem to get it right, and Henry Mills is her last chance before she gets reassigned to guard duty.<br/>Henry Mills is a smart kid in a small town with a big mouth, a bigger imagination, and an iron will so unshakable that his last guardian quit in protest.<br/>Regina Mills... isn't exactly something Emma is prepared to deal with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a total crack!fic of mine, based on a wish-prompt I posted on my tumblr ages ago that I finally just decided to start writing. It turned out to be SwanQueen because SWAN QUEEN ALL THE THINGS.
> 
> Important notes:  
> 1\. Happy endings always happen in crack!fic, I promise.  
> 2\. This is an angel story, but literally just that. There's not going to be any religious message and I'm not out to make any kind of statements about anything or offend anybody. Seriously, this will be even less dogmatic than Touched By An Angel, which was my original prompt. (If it helps you, there's a movie called Ink, made in 2009, and my notion of angels in this story is based mostly on the Storytellers there. You should watch that movie if you get a chance because it's very, very good.)

* * *

 

 

Emma didn’t care what Michael said, being a guardian wasn’t getting any easier the longer she did it. Not that she was bad at it - she kept her charges obsessively safe and as happy as they could manage to be - but Emma never quite managed to rid herself of the restlessness, the neediness that was associated with the very-recently-dead. She got attached, made it personal, interfered too much, and wound up sitting in a heap outside of Michael’s office, bruises on her knees and elbows from being tossed unceremoniously back onto the city steps by Peter.

The little robed figure next to her sniffled, drawing her out of her self-absorbed examination of her torn blue jeans. “Hey,” she muttered, taking in the tiny wing-stubs and the still-regulation white toga. “Your first day?”

The little girl blinked at her through her sandy blond bangs. “Yeah,” she whispered sullenly. “I got sick.”

Emma winced internally. “I’m sorry.”

The girl shrugged. Emma hesitated and reached out to touch her shoulder. Feelings and memories flooded her, which she did her best to ignore. Touch was hard for Emma, another thing that wasn’t getting any easier. Touching someone, angel or human or hell, even dog, was basically like turning on a faucet and sticking her brain underneath it. She inhaled sharply when the kid shot forward and wrapped her arms around her neck, sobbing; Emma grimaced and shifted her wings into a more comfortable position, patting awkwardly at the shaking ribcage.

“I miss my mom.”

“Yeah,” Emma agreed uselessly, continuing to pet and hum until the gold door in front of her creaked open.

“Emma? He’s ready for you.” Pale, beautiful Zadkiel smiled at her softly from the doorframe, his long hair bound in a complicated braid that flopped lazily over his shoulder. Emma sighed and glanced down at the still crying kid, loathe to leave her, even to answer a summons from Michael. Seeing her dilemma, Zad glided the rest of the way out of the door and down the steps, his stride so smooth Emma wasn’t sure his feet were really touching the ground - which, knowing the archangels, they probably weren’t. Gently, he crouched down next to her and lifted the kid out of her arms.

“Go on,” he said, as the girl attached, limpet-style, to his neck and kept crying. “I’ve got this.”

Emma’s hands hovered over the little, fluttering wings for a second more, and then she sighed. “I’m in big trouble, huh?”

Zad’s smile stretched further, but his lips stayed closed and he only _pushed_ at her gently with his will, a tugging sensation at Emma’s shoulders and wings like a particularly strong breeze. Emma wiped her suddenly sweaty palms on her jeans and obediently stood. He could have pushed a lot stronger, could even have made her think she wanted to go, but the fact that he hadn’t made Emma feel obligated to go anyways.

Besides, it wasn’t like Michael could actually kill her, or anything.

She remembered to tuck her wings tight against her back and legs, just in time to avoid clipping them on the door frame. They weren’t actually a convenient size for her height - as far as Emma had been able to tell, wings came in roughly standard issue sizes and hers were on par with the rest of the entry level guardians - and to hold them like this she had to cross the tips at her ankles and hunch her shoulders up. She wasn’t all that good at controlling them yet, and it took a lot of focus, so she didn’t notice right away that Michael wasn’t alone in his office.

She noticed when a pair of arms wrapped around her and hugged, and she sagged into the embrace immediately, the touch familiar and non-invasive the way only the archs could manage. “Again, Emma?” Gabriel murmured in her ear, carefully speaking the words out loud.

“‘What are we going to do with you?’” Emma aped the next sentence solemnly, prying her face out of the crook of Gabriel’s shoulder and squinting up at her. Though all the archs were genderfluid, as far as Emma had been able to find out via some inelegant questioning, Gabriel tended to prefer her female form when they were in the City, and Emma tended to prefer Gabriel’s female form, period, with its elegant high cheekbones and fondly sexual smirk.

Gabriel shook her head and rubbed her fingers along Emma’s jaw. “No, actually, I know exactly what to do with you this time.”

“That remains to be seen.” Startled, Emma jerked her head towards Michael’s desk and felt her stomach drop back down at the look of censure on his face. He was leaning on both hands and glaring at her, fingers tapping and primary wings stretched almost the full length of his not-small office. Size and space didn’t make very much sense in the City, and really all Emma could figure out was ‘big,’ ‘really big,’ and ‘small enough to be realistic.’ (Realistic was a vague remnant from being a living human, like time, _that_ she understood.)

“Hey, boss?” Emma thought about disengaging from Gabriel’s arms and snapping to attention, but Gabriel had begun petting her wings and it felt really good. “I thought I did okay this time?”

Michael heaved a huge sigh and then was on the other side of the desk, sitting between his hands. “Emma.” He didn’t say anything else but he didn’t have to; the entire sequence of events was rolling through all of their heads like a freakishly fast movie. It slowed to watch the end in something approaching real time.

“What, I was just supposed to let him get his ass kicked?” Emma defended, watching herself score a really sweet right hook dead onto a guy’s cheekbone and trying not to let Michael or Gabriel feel her pride at the move.

“Yes.”

Emma scowled and tried to pull away from Gabriel, but it was pretty much useless. “Fuck that.” They’d never censored her or even flinched but she still got a kick out of cursing in front of archangels.

“We don’t interfere,” Michael told her sternly. “We only -”

“Influence, yeah, yeah, I know.” Emma rolled her eyes and batted away Gabriel’s wandering hands before they slipped underneath her shirt and succeeded in distracting her from her anger. Gabriel huffed in annoyance and the disgruntled look on her face almost did it anyways. “They were going to kill him, Mike.”

Michael stiffened at the use of the nickname and seemed to seriously consider scolding her for using it. “Humans die, Emma. You know that.”

It was the wrong thing to say, from a born-angel to a dead-human-angel, and Gabriel at least recognized that. “You know what he means, Emma.” Emma tried to ignore the sting of tears and the returning echo of the pain she’d felt at her own death. “Shh. Or you’ll ruin your shirt.”

When Emma’s eyes stopped blurring and she looked up again, Michael had retreated behind his desk and looked vaguely contrite around his mouth, even if his eyebrows were still stern and scary. “I was going to put you on guard duty for a while,” he said, and Emma felt a real flash of fear at the idea, standing as one in a line and staring out at the darkness without blinking forever, but Gabriel squeezed her forearm and she refocused. “But Gabriel convinced me to give you one last chance. One.” He glared and held up a finger, just in case Emma couldn’t count, and he waited until Emma nodded her understanding before he reached onto his desk and manifested an open manila folder to toss in her direction. It was something they did often, conjuring up items that were familiar to the recent-humans, to keep them from suffering total mindmeld overload. Emma wasn’t sure if the archangels even needed to talk to each other, the way that they were so careful - and sometimes clumsy - about talking to her out loud.

Emma picked up the folder and looked at the picture inside, a kid with dark hair and wide, expressive eyes, hunched down in a bus seat with a huge book open in his lap. Emma thought for a moment that it was a still image, but then he sniffled and turned a page, and she realized she could feel him breathing in her chest, the echo of his life inside of her that meant he was her charge.

“But... he’s gotta be eight? Nine?” Emma tried to hand the folder back, but really couldn’t take her eyes off of him. “Where’s his birth guardian?”

Gabriel snarled, the sound so uncharacteristic that Emma actually leaped a few feet away before she caught herself, and she turned to look askance at her just in time to see Gabriel close his eyes and run his fingers through his hair, and at the motion flow back down into female again. Emma gaped. Michael chuckled at her shock, his eyes dancing with genuine amusement, so that was two things Emma had never seen before.

“It’s not funny,” Gabriel muttered, her eyebrows still thicker and darker, apparently to make her scowl more effective. “His birth guardian _quit_.”

“We can quit?”

“No,” Michael snapped immediately. “Well, technically. _Apparently_.” He waved his hand and paced away from them angrily.

“He’s difficult, Emma,” Gabriel said, taking the folder from her fingers and looking fondly at the boy. “He’s impulsive, stubborn, and he has imagination for days. He _will_ get into trouble.”

“Why give him to me, then?” Emma asked, even though her fingers were twitching to reclaim the folder, the kid already tugging her to him.

Gabriel smiled, the harshest angles on her face fading back into the gentle appearance Emma was used to. “Because I think you might understand a little something about being stubborn and impulsive.”

Emma wanted to protest, but thought maybe that would just prove the point. She held out her hand for the folder. “Gimme.”

Gabriel grinned. “That’s the spirit.”

Emma took one last look at the picture before she inhaled deeply and planted her hand down on it. The connection shot up into her arm all the way to her heart, and yanked her down.

 

Everyone on the bus shivered. _Oops_. Emma concentrated hard and kept her wings folding until they folded down into nothing and she could scrunch her energy down into vaguely human size. Normally the transition wasn’t so abrupt and she didn’t appear in such a crowded place. Emma felt clumsy and awkward even though no one could see her. She dragged her boots up the center aisle of the Greyhound, checking the seats until she found him.

The seat next to him was empty, his knee and the edge of his book poking over the divide. Emma sat down and carefully avoided touching him, trying to see all that she could with just her eyes. He was wearing jeans and sneakers but they weren’t cheaply made or old, and the starched white collar peeking out from his zippered Superman hoodie looked like part of a school uniform. “What are you doing on this bus, kid?” she muttered.

He couldn’t hear her, not really, but he sniffed and rubbed at his red-rimmed eyes. Emma craned her neck and looked at the glossy graphics he was reading, but before she could parse any of the words, he shifted slightly and his temple collided with her chin. Emma winced and flinched backwards, not prepared, but luckily the contact was brief enough that she didn’t get anything more that an unintelligible flash of emotions. The boy - _Henry_ , she felt his name all the way down to her bones the moment she thought it - frowned and looked up from his book, eyes tracking over in her direction. Emma held her breath and didn’t move even though was pretty sure he couldn’t see her, and sighed in relief when he went back to reading.

It was dark outside of the bus and the lights were dim inside; Emma had no trouble seeing so it took her a while to be concerned about the state of his eyes if he kept reading. Right when she was thinking about maybe fiddling with one of the overhead lights to see about getting it brighter, she noticed that his eyelids were drooping and his head beginning to list in her direction.

Carefully, Emma shifted, raising her arm up over his head and bringing it down around his shoulders as he slipped slowly into reluctant sleep. “Okay, Henry,” she whispered, wrapping her fingers loosely around his own. “Why are you running?”

Sorting through a kid’s mind was way, way harder than sorting through an arch’s mind; with no sense of guidance, Emma just skipped haphazardly along the surface, and resisted the urge to go deeper to find what she needed. This was weird, him being so old - Emma was used to starting at the same time as her charge, and worming her way into symbiosis with a newborn baby that barely had any thoughts was much easier than an eight - _ten, he was ten even if he was kind of small_ \- year old kid who already had a lot of his walls built up. She found a couple of places to slip down in, a couple of longer thought threads, but balked, feeling invasive.

He wasn’t being hurt, she figured out, although there were a few stray memories of some kids throwing punches and food at school that made Emma’s fists clench protectively as she viewed them from his perspective, and as she carefully expanded her reading outward, waiting for something truly awful to happen, she instead found herself smiling in sympathy for him. Gabriel hadn’t been kidding: this kid had moxie for days and most of his memories had been drawn on like a comic book, everyone in gaudy, colorful outfits with outsized superpowers. He was fun. Emma was looking forward to knowing him.

First thing was first, though. Emma took a deep breath and summoned up the meager amount of Will she had, pressing her cheek firmly to his forehead. _You want to go home, Henry._

The bus hit a pothole and Henry jolted awake, his hands flying out to clutch his book to his chest. His eyes were wide with fear; Emma felt guilty for a few seconds, but fear was the easiest way to motivate kids and she didn’t have many more tools at her disposal yet. She didn’t know him well enough and he wasn’t used to listening to her.

He swallowed hard and shifted, shoving his book down into his backpack and shuffling his sneakers on the dirty bus floor. “Um,” he said quietly, inhaling hard and forcing himself not to cry. Emma felt bad enough that she set her hands directly on his shoulders and concentrating on shoring up the courage she knew was there. His spine stiffened at the contact and his jaw tightened. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah, kid?” the bus driver asked over his shoulder, looking up at Henry through the convex mirror. Emma followed his gaze and looked at Henry the way the driver saw him: a pale little kid, riding alone, his hair messy and full of cowlicks. _Can’t be any older than your kid_ , Emma _pushed_ at him, because he was tired and he needed a push.

Henry swallowed hard. Emma smiled and wanted to hug him for being so brave. “I think I made a mistake. I need to go home.”

The bus driver looked at him for a few beats, but Emma knew she didn’t need to do anything; he’d already made up his mind and was just making Henry sweat for a minute more, which as far as Emma was concerned he needed to do. “You stay on this bus instead of transferring at the next stop, kid. I go right back the way we came.”

 _Say thank you_ , Emma was thinking, but Henry had already said it, and ‘sir’ besides. He restlessly bounced back and forth between the two seats in his row - Emma moved into the aisle because it wasn’t comfortable feeling him move through her over and over again and she was worried she would accidentally bounce him off of her - until the driver reached into his pocket and poked a pack of crackers over his shoulder.

“Here. Eat something and go back to sleep. I’ll make sure you get back to Storybrooke.” Emma smiled and settled back down in the seat next to him, closing her eyes along with his and letting herself gently push his dreams into happy places.

“Thank you again, sir,” Henry said, adjusting his backpack on his shoulders and squinting up at the driver from the curb. The driver nodded and shut the doors. Henry didn’t move until the bus turned a corner and disappeared from sight. “I am in so much trouble,” he sighed to himself, slowly beginning to meander down the empty street, kicking at a rock.

Emma looked around as she strolled next to him, hands in her pockets. _Storybrooke_ , she thought to herself, shaking her head at how cute it was. City hall, town square, flower shop, hardware store. Like something that had gotten stuck in a 50s sitcom. As a human, Emma had been exclusively a big-city type of girl, and none of her charges had ever lived in a town this small. She hadn’t thought anybody lived in a town this small.

It only took about five minutes for Henry to walk, dragging his feet, from the bus stop downtown all the way to a residential neighborhood and up a gentle hill. At the top of the hill, he paused with his hand on a picket fence, and Emma had time to blink at the size of the house - she’d figured out that he wasn’t poor but since he was a kid, he had absolutely no idea - before the front door opened and Henry stiffened in fear. Emma clapped a hand down onto his shoulder and _willed_ him in place. “Hi, Mom,” he called sheepishly, and Emma felt like he was shored up enough to glance up at the figure he was waving at.

“ _Holy shit_ ,” Emma breathed, barely even noticing when Henry ripped out of her grip and ran up to accept the tearful hug he was being offered.

The kid’s mom was _hot_.

* * *

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter wound up being pretty short, so I thought I would go ahead and post it today. (But don't expect updates to be quite this fast in the future; in a perfect world yes, but this is far from perfect.)

* * *

 

 

Emma stood completely shock-still for way too long, staring at the woman’s face and struggling to remember that she didn’t need to breathe at all, so the fact that she _couldn’t_ breathe wasn’t actually a thing.

She remembered she had feet and also a job to do, so she stumbled closer to Henry and tried to open the feed back up, only to slam it shut again because the kid was a floodgate of human emotion. Emma squinted her eyes shut and focused on sorting them: relief, warmth, love, happiness at being back, fear at being punished. Emma understood that last one best from her own experience, so she went with it instinctively, poking carefully at the surface emotions of Henry’s mom to try and figure out what she needed to prepare for.

The contact was immediate and unexpectedly intense, and Emma lurched forward as if pulled by a magnet, managing to stop herself just short of actually barreling into both of them. Emma let everything go and breathed, still feeling the pull, so she did the next thing that made sense to her, and pressed her hands to Henry’s back, trying to reestablish the main connection with him.

It worked but slowly, and Emma twitched, fighting the urge to wrap her arms around the woman - _Regina_ , her thoughts were jumbled and sharp and Emma wanted to dive into them and - until she managed to ground herself back in Henry’s mind and looked with him up at the man in the sheriff’s uniform that was speaking.

Regina straightened but kept her hands tightly pressed to Henry’s shoulder and cheek. She spoke to the sheriff but Henry wasn’t listening so Emma didn’t. She needed to stay completely with him until she managed to get her shit together. The sheriff left and Emma followed the two of them into the house, the pool of dread in the pit of Henry’s stomach making her queasy. The house was warm and smelled like cinnamon, which helped. Emma blinked away the tears that Henry was suppressing as he dropped his backpack and toed off his shoes automatically. Emma looked down at her boots and thought about it; after a few seconds they disappeared from her feet and reappeared in her hands. She lined them up carefully next to Henry’s, and followed his thread down the hall slowly, examining his pictures on the walls, trailing her fingers along the baseboards.

Henry was sitting at the breakfast island in the kitchen, up on a tall barstool with his socks swinging, and Regina was standing opposite him with her chin in her hands, eyes wide like she needed them to be even larger to see him properly. Without even trying, Emma could feel her need to reach out and touch him again.

Henry was eating apple pie, and though Emma had no idea what it tasted like she felt the emotions of it and pressed her hands to the back of her neck, trying to focus and not just melt into the warmth of the house and snooze forever. What was so bad about this? Why would any angel quit this job?

She slid up to the bar and poked gently at the pie, making it warm again slightly so the rest of his ice cream would melt. Then Regina sighed and Henry’s fingers stiffened, nearly dropping the spoon. “Mom - I -”

Regina picked up his half finished plate and put it next to the sink, leaning against the counter and inhaling deeply. Emma watched, half in fascination and half with Henry’s abject fear, as her anger ratcheted up her spine and pushed out all of her more pleasant emotions. “What were you thinking?” she said without turning, her voice hard and flinty and nothing like her interior voice.

Just when Emma was sure Henry was about to have a panic attack and reached her hands out to intervene, a wall of stubbornness slammed up so quickly it knocked her for a spin. “I was trying to find my real parents.”

Emma’s eyebrows lifted as she digested that - it hadn’t even occurred to her that Henry was adopted, not when Regina just _felt_ like his mom - and she almost missed the shattered look on Regina’s face as he said it. Henry did miss it, too preoccupied with shoving away from the counter and stomping his socked feet up the stairs as loudly as possible.

“No video games, young man!” Regina shouted after him.

“I _know_ ,” Henry snapped back, his door slamming.

Regina tipped her head back and counted silently, her lips moving. Emma wanted to reach out and hug her, try to stem the tide of tears she knew was coming, but Henry was too far away and it was yanking on her heart, so she simply touched her fingertips to the tips of Regina’s hair, and then let herself be reeled upstairs.

Henry was facedown on the bed, crying. Emma sank down next to him and rubbed his back gently, his thoughts too unfinished and closed off to make any kind of influence useful. He was exhausted, though, and it didn’t take more than the gentlest of pushes for him to tip over into sleep. Emma resisted the impulse to follow him, and kept her hands moving up and down his back, humming.

She almost startled when the door opened, but watched quietly as Regina tiptoed over to the bed and tugged a folded set of pajamas out from underneath his pillow. Carefully and taking great pains to be quiet, she changed him into them and tucked him under the covers, holding her breath every time he made a sound. Emma kept her fingers on the back of his neck and kept pushing him back into sleep every time his stubborn brain tried to wake him.

Regina’s eyes were red and her mascara smudged; without thinking about it, Emma reached out and gently wiped the streaks off of her face, careful to keep the touch ephemeral enough that she didn’t notice. Regina stared into Henry’s face for a long time, her hands fisted in the blankets around his shoulders, before she managed to convince herself to get up and leave.

Emma exhaled and shifted until she was sitting up against the headboard. _Gabriel, Gabriel, Gabriel_ , she thought loudly. It wasn’t a real thing she could do, summon an arch, but she knew they were sensitive to their names and maybe Gabriel was in a giving mood.

 _Yes, love?_ Gabriel manifested in her mind’s eye, just enough for Emma to have someone to talk to.

 _This is a mess_ , Emma blurted, showing Gabriel the whole thing. Gabriel nodded and Emma felt her head tipping up and down automatically.

 _I know_.

Henry shifted in his sleep and flung an arm out in Emma’s direction; Emma caught it and twined her fingers with his automatically. _Why didn’t you tell me?_

Gabriel wrapped her arms around her comfortingly. _There’s a lot of things we’re not telling you._

Emma jerked her shoulders upright. “That is a really shitty thing to say!” she snapped, and Gabriel shushed her, nodding down at the suddenly restless Henry until Emma could calm herself, and by extension him, down. _Look, just tell me what -_

_You’ll be fine, Emma. Just do your best._

And like that, Gabriel was gone, leaving Emma feeling empty, cold and grouchy. She hunkered down closer to her charge and muttered her question to him, instead. “What happened to your mom’s angel, kid?”

* * *

 


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

 

Breakfast was a hurt, silent and angry affair that made Emma want to punch things. She settled for pulling the heat from Regina’s coffee and making Henry miss his mouth with his spoon several times while he wolfed down the cereal he’d fixed himself instead of the eggs and toast Regina had set in front of him. _Children, both of you_ , Emma sulked childishly, chasing the cheerios away from Henry’s spoon and wishing she could eat the rapidly cooling eggs.

“Did you brush your teeth?” Regina’s waspish voice broke the silence, and Emma followed Henry upstairs to make sure he really did it. She planted her hand right on the nape of his neck and thought, _Be nice to your mom_ , but his walls were all the way up and Emma didn’t think any of it got through.

She blinked back down the stairs ahead of him, and didn’t let herself hesitate as she grabbed Regina’s wrist with her hand, her fingers tangling with her watchband. _Be nice to Henry_. Regina’s entire body reacted immediately and her face softened into something so beautiful and innocent that Emma’s heart wrenched. “I love you, Henry,” she called after him as he slung his backpack over his shoulders and ran down the path to the street. “Have a good day at school!”

Henry didn’t acknowledge her words and Emma fought against her need to follow him just long enough to squeeze Regina’s wrist again. _It’s okay_. She couldn’t wait around to see if her words had any effect, because Henry was running down the sidewalk and it was her first day of school, so she needed to be on point. She glanced back as she sprinted to catch up, and Regina was standing still in the doorway, holding her wrist tightly in her hand.

Emma looked down at herself as they neared the school building, checking her appearance and getting ready to meet the other guardians. Adults did without their guardians for longer periods of time, the angels fading into the background and letting them muddle through the way humans did, relying on the influence they’d carried through from childhood to (hopefully) guide them into decent decisions. Kids were wide open and needed constant supervision as they shaped into more concrete personalities, so schools were usually hot social areas for Emma. She hoped that Henry’s best friend had a nice one; in her experience nothing made an assignment more tedious than having to hang around with another guardian she couldn’t stand.

But even after they got to school and walked down the hall, Henry didn’t speak to anyone. No kids came running up to him, shouting his name. Emma pressed in closer to him and felt the cottony isolation stick in the back of her throat. _Oh, kid_. She rested her hand on his shoulder and tried to think of some comforting emotions.

They were nearly to the door Henry thought of as ‘Miss Blanchard’s room’ when the hit came from the side; Emma was so startled that she nearly blocked it and only remembered at the last second that she had to get out of the way. Henry was shoved firmly against some lockers, so hard that he bounced and fell to the floor. Emma helped him up as best she could, making sure none of his things fell out of his backpack or pockets.

“Where were you, nerd? We missed you yesterday.”

Henry squared his shoulders and looked the much bigger kid in the face; Emma glared at the guardian leaning lazily against the opposite wall, a sleepy-looking woman who simply held up her hands in a vague apology. Emma scowled, _Useless_ , but the other angel just shrugged.

“I was out of town,” Henry explained defiantly, with his chin tipped up as if daring the bigger boy to hit him on it.

“Right,” the boy sneered, one hand fisting in Henry’s backpack strap, forcing him back against the locker again. “Everyone knows, nerd. Your mom sic’d the sheriff on you.”

“They made an announcement,” another boy added, his chest puffed up. Emma looked up into the face of his guardian, who was holding him back by his shoulders and frowning. _Sorry, we’re sorry_ , he mouthed to her, and Emma wrapped her arm around Henry’s shoulders, not accepting the apology.

Henry’s teeth were squeaking as he tried to come up with a response, but Emma could only hear his crippling embarrassment, _everyone knows everyone knows_ circling around his head like a scratched disc. Emma closed her eyes and blocked out everything that was going on, focusing tightly on him until she could slide some words into his rotation: _it’s okay, it’ll be okay_. She knew that Henry didn’t believe her, even if the thoughts sounded like they were his own, but she hoped that maybe it would be enough to stop the flow. Emma had enough experience with anxiety attacks to know that sometimes you just needed an interrupt.

“Boys?” The soft voice that broke into Emma’s concentration belonged to a middle-aged woman with a soft face and a neat pixie cut. M _iss Blanchard_ , Henry's relieved mind supplied her with. “It’s time for class.” Her smile was pleasant and her sweater had kittens on it, but her eyes were narrowed just enough to scatter the older boys. She held out her hand for Henry. “It’s good to see you, Henry.”

“Hi, Miss Blanchard,” he replied with real fondness in his voice, hugging her briefly after the hall was empty and before he walked into the classroom. His teacher’s hands lingered on his shoulders until he was too far away, a frown pulling at her mouth. Emma followed her into the classroom and almost smacked right into her guardian angel.

_What_ \- she blurted, stumbling at the unexpectedly ‘solid’ impediment. The dignified old man reached out and helped her regain her balance before gruffly burying his hands back in the pockets of his robe. _Who even wears robes anymore?_ The thought was out before she could censor it.

He frowned and looked her over. _Huh. Hope you’ve got more guts than the last one._ As Emma followed Henry to his desk, the far left closest to the teacher’s, she caught the tail end of his thought: _Good luck with that._

Emma scowled and introduced herself to the guardian angels seated around her. They all gave her a token onceover, and one of them even said hello back. Emma bit at her lips and tried not to think about how much she was reminded of the first day at a new group home, all of the other kids already cliqued up and uninterested. She usually didn’t think so much about herself; being so off-balance had her vulnerable to it, she supposed. She’d cycled through a lot of charges since then, but thinking about them was even harder.

Henry had trouble paying attention in class; Emma found a loose elastic string in his sock and snapped it at him every time she felt him wandering. She wasn’t ever going to be able to help him with this. She had never been good at math. Or much good at paying attention herself. She felt around for the teacher’s Old Man River guardian but he’d scuttled off somewhere. Emma toyed with the idea of going to look for him, since Henry was going to be under the eyes of his teacher for a while, but the quiet smack of a spitball but the kibosh on that idea.

Henry peeled the wet wad of paper off the back of his neck and Emma narrowed her focus on it, whipping her head around to catch the guilty face of a young-looking guardian with flowers tucked into her hair. Emma glared and one of the flowers wilted briefly, but the broad-faced kid sitting in front of her was already loading up another wad of chewed notebook paper into his straw. The teacher hadn’t noticed a thing. Emma kept one hand on Henry’s shoulder, and spent the rest of class carefully pushing the spitballs just off course enough that the other kid gave up, thinking his aim was bad.

When Miss Blanchard announced lunch, Henry took the longest to get up out of his desk. “Miss Blanchard?” he asked quietly. “Can I eat in here today?”

“I’m afraid not, Henry,” she replied. Emma started to reach out to push, feeling slightly overwhelmed herself and thinking that a break from manipulating the laws of physics sounded really awesome, but then she realized that the look of remorse on the teacher’s face was genuine and she probably couldn’t make her feel any more guilty.

Henry sat at the end of a long table and dispassionately unpacked his lunch. The only time Emma got any kind of crack in his armor when he discovered the two chocolate chip cookies tucked underneath the wheat-bread sandwich. Emma sat up on the table next to his food and leaned forward, stretching her wings out over him because, frankly, she had the space and she was peeved enough at the other guardians that she didn’t give a flying fuck about protocol.

Seeing the tension in Henry’s shoulders ease as she shielded him was certainly worth the possible faux paus. Emma relaxed a bit and rubbed her face with her hands. “What the hell is going on around here?”

“It’s because of his mom,” a guardian muttered out of the corner of his mouth as he drifted past with his charge. Emma jumped up and started to follow him, but Henry flinched and dropped his sandwich the moment her wings left him exposed, so she reluctantly resumed her post and eyed his second cookie - he’d wolfed the first one but conscientiously saved the second one, which Emma admired as a strategy - enviously. She manifested her own cookie and ate it, but it wasn’t a real cookie so it didn’t taste like anything.

She did it again anyways and thought about Regina, and the way the woman pulled at her, and what on earth that had to do with Henry. Also she decided that she was going to keep her wings out for the whole rest of the school day, whether or not it meant poking a couple of the kids behind her in the face.

* * *

 


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

 

Even though using her wings made her job slightly easier, at the end of the day Emma was just about as eager for school to be over as Henry was. He packed up his stuff five minutes before class was over and bolted out the second his teacher let them go; Emma had caught onto his plan when he started jiggling his leg and broadcasting it loudly, but she was still shocked at how fast he could move. _We should really run track or something_ , she huffed as she tucked her wings forward to reduce drag and sprinted to keep up.

His fear tasted bitter in her mouth, so she knew why they were running and was prepared when she heard the bikes behind them. Henry made a pinwheeling right turn down a gravel driveway and when they followed, Emma saw the opportunity - while Henry kept running, she turned, stomped her feet, and shifted larger pieces of gravel underneath their tires. All she needed was one to fall; finally, the guardian who had apologized to her earlier (and whose kid was wearing a helmet) let the bike wobble and skid onto its side.

_Sorry!_ Emma shouted as she turned and ran to catch up with Henry. Just because no one else seemed to have any manners in this town didn’t mean she was going to go without them.

She was surprised when she realized that Henry was heading downtown, rather than home. The gravel drive ended at a park, and Henry realized no one was following him anymore as he trampled onto a gazebo. He hunched over on his knees and panted, and Emma reminded herself that she didn’t actually need to do that because she wasn’t really winded. She was getting a headache from manipulating so much of the physical world, and she was frankly shocked that she hadn’t gotten scolded for it yet.

Henry walked into the diner across the street from the park, a bell chiming his entrance.

“Hey, Henry!”

Emma felt a blush crawling over his face and mimicked his self-conscious posturing as she turned to look at the waitress, who was smiling with her entire body. Henry shuffled his shoulders and then managed a winsome smile. “Hey, Ruby.” He tossed his hair out of his eyes and walked to a certain booth, being extra careful not to trip. Emma chuckled and made sure he didn’t.

The pretty waitress brought Henry hot chocolate without being prompted, and Emma - working really hard to keep from ogling her, Henry was bad enough and she didn’t need to encourage him - let her eyes wander around the diner and caught sight of something that really did distract her. The waitress’ guardian was sitting up on the counter, casually wearing the shape of a wolf.

_That’s not something you see everyday_ , Emma mused. Technically angels could assume any shapes they wanted, but not very many of them took advantage in such a radical fashion. The wolf’s mouth dropped open in a grin.

_Arooo_ , he howled at her, in a completely human voice. Emma snorted and covered her laughter with her hand. She started to sit down in the booth opposite Henry, but flinched instead at the feeling of a non-Henry human walking right through her. Miss Blanchard sat down in the booth and Emma sat down in the booth behind him instead, eyeing the teacher warily.

“Good afternoon, Henry,” she greeted softly. “I’m glad you could make it.”

_Literally_ , Emma rolled her eyes, her patience stretched by the fact that the woman clearly knew what was happening to Henry and wasn’t doing more to stop it.

_We are doing our best._

Emma shot around and scowled as she wrenched her wings into the back of the booth. While technically they weren’t solid and they phased through things without a problem, they had enough sensation that she didn’t like it. Miss Blanchard’s guardian sat there in the booth opposite her, with his hands folded in front of him, waiting patiently for her to regroup. “What does that mean, your best?”

He touched the top of his bald head and rubbed his fingers together to produce a linen handkerchief to dab at the skin. Emma blinked and bit back on her need to ask him what the hell he’d done that for, since neither of them was capable of sweating. If she was nice to him, maybe she would get some answers. “It means that unless we can get him away from that woman, there isn’t much we can do.” The way he referred to Regina - Emma had no doubt who ‘that woman’ was - made it sound like Regina was actually made of an awkward collection of dog shit and rusty nails.

Emma thought about cinnamon, and the heat of her wrist against her fingers, and the way she looked at her son as if he was made of moons and stars, and phrased her next question very carefully. “What the hell is your problem with Regina?” Okay, so maybe not that carefully.

His thick, white eyebrows lifted towards his nonexistent hairline. “You can’t feel it?”

“Well, yeah, she doesn’t have -”

“A soul!” he completed dramatically for her.

Emma really did take a second before she decided to speak again, making sure her voice sounded especially calm and collected. “I’m like ninety nine percent sure that isn’t true. I was going to say, ‘She doesn’t have a _guardian_ ,’ which how does a person just -”

“She does.”

Emma blinked. “No, I would have...” She trailed off, shaking her head, feeling the desperate way Regina’s heart had pulled at her, like a drowning person reaching for a life raft.

The old man pointed across the town square to a little storefront that was boarded up, the windows dark. “He lives in there. He _hides_ in there. Regina was too dark for him, too evil.” He shook his head sadly. “It’s a shame, because Henry is a good boy. But she’ll poison him, in the end. She’ll get you, and then she’ll get him.”

The diner bell chimed. Emma looked up, grateful for the distraction, just as she heard a familiar, flinty voice. “Henry.”

Henry looked up from his empty hot chocolate, whipped cream on the end of his nose. “Hi, Mom,” he greeted casually, the veins in his throat pulsing visibly with the strain of maintaining his composure.

Regina was wearing a black suit with an extremely well-fitted skirt, which was a thing that Emma was very busy noticing. She nearly missed the way that Old Man River and the wolf shrank back, away from her, and probably wouldn’t have noticed at all if she didn’t feel their energy slam up into walls around them. Their charges shifted uncomfortably at the move and drew away from Regina instinctively. Emma reached for Henry and poured as much love down the connection as she could. She wanted to reach for Regina, as well, since the woman’s posture was far too controlled for her to be unaware of the effect she was having, but her walls were all the way up and Emma didn’t want the other guardians to know she was sympathetic.

“Wipe off your nose, Henry, and get your things.” Regina’s voice was hard and implied that Henry was in trouble, but Emma cranked her influence up to eleven and blocked Henry from feeling any fear over it. The effort made her gasp and curl her toes, but it was worth it for the way that the corners of Regina’s mouth relaxed when Henry quietly did as she’d asked.

_You won’t last very long at this rate_ , Old Man River admonished her tightly as they left the diner and walked down the street. Regina moved remarkably swiftly, given the height of the heels she was wearing, and Henry trotted to keep up, his thumbs hooked in his backpack straps.

“How was school, dear?” Regina asked, her voice pointedly mild. Emma wrapped her arms around Henry’s shoulders and matched his strides, losing her brute force ability to affect him and going for the less recognized ‘cuddle and act like a dork because you don’t know what else to do’ technique. It worked for puppies and it was going to work for her.

“It was fine.”

Emma hugged him harder. They would work on telling the truth later.

* * *

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

 

Henry read comics books instead of doing his homework, and Emma laid facedown on his bed with her wings hanging limply off of both sides instead of bothering him about it. She was treading an unfortunately thin line between ‘too exhausted to function’ and ‘too exhausted to keep her shields up and not function.’

It wouldn’t have been a problem except Regina was directly below her in the kitchen, and every time she moved Emma could feel it against her skin.

It was far from unpleasant but it probably wasn’t something Emma should be doing, particularly since every other guardian in the town seemed to think the woman - who, Emma was amused to note, was wearing an actual apron, one with lace trim - was some kind of actual monster.

Emma closed her eyes and tried to _feel_ objectively. Regina certainly wasn’t approachable, not like Henry, whose heart shone outwards with hope despite his current predicament, and there was something alarming about the strength of her pull, the way Emma had immediately been beside herself to touch her.

She groaned and pulled her arms up over her head. _BUT_ , she shouted to herself, _IS IT EVIL?_

She rolled over on her side and looked at Henry, halfway through a comic book all about good and evil. “What does evil even look like, Henry?” she asked. He turned a page. Emma sighed and closed her eyes again... and accidentally fell downstairs.

“Ouch,” she muttered, not that it had actually hurt to land, but she felt obliged to say something about the fact that she had bellyflopped onto the kitchen island and there was a bowl of apples sticking out of her ribcage. She pushed herself upright and sat on the counter, and accidentally knocked an egg timer onto the floor with her wingtip. It dinged, and Regina frowned down at it. “Oh for fuck’s sake.” Emma pulled her wings in and the rest of her in for good measure, until she was curled up on the counter with her arms wrapped around her knees.

Regina slowly picked up the timer and checked it over before she carefully set it down on the counter. She looked slightly spooked. Emma took a deep breath and _blinked_ , hard, back upstairs.

Just in time to see Henry climb out of his bedroom window.

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” she shouted again, shoving off the bed and climbing up on the desk to follow him and make sure he didn’t break his dumbass neck climbing down the trellis. The fact that he didn’t told her that he’d climbed out before, which didn’t exactly improve her mood.

He landed in the bushes and was off like a shot towards the woods, keeping low until he passed out of sight of the kitchen windows, but even once he was in the woods he didn’t stop running. _This is ridiculous_ , Emma groused, peevishly snagging her jacket on bits and pieces of shrubbery.

They finally stopped at an old playset by the shore. Emma looked around but didn’t see any houses or roads nearby, and she deliberately pressed her fingers to the wooden structure, trying to read into why it was there. She didn’t get anything beyond memories of Henry in it; objects hadn’t ever been one of her strong suits.

“Your own Fortress of Solitude, huh?” she asked Henry as he crawled up into the castle-shaped upper level. He had a big flashlight and a molding poster of Clark Kent pulling open his shirt and tie tacked onto the ceiling. Emma sank down and tipped her head back against the wall as he settled down to read. She wanted to be angry with him for being a mom-dodging little shit, but she needed to be away from the house even more than he did. She let him read until it started getting dark and she could hold her eyes open without squinting, and then she started drawing his attention to the sounds of the animals outside. He eventually freaked out enough to go back home.

Emma could feel Regina’s anger way before she could see her. She took a deep breath and held her hands flush against Henry’s shoulderblades, pushing him forward just enough to keep moving. She didn’t think she could make him unafraid, not when she was freaking out a little bit herself.

Regina was standing in the yard with her feet planted and her arms crossed, one finger tapping against her elbow. Her lips pursed in a satisfied scowl when Henry emerged from the trees and dragged his feet towards her.

From far away, her anger was pure and bright, sharp enough to cut, but as they neared it shattered into facets and Emma stopped being able to read it as specific emotions: anger, still, but also hurt, fear, maybe. Her eyes flickered with it, just enough vulnerability that Henry saw it and hung his head rather than continue to see it. Emma didn’t blame him; Regina’s pain was hard to stomach and it was easier to rely on her anger.

“Go to your room.”

“Mom, I just -”

“Go.”

Stomach twisting with guilt, Emma went with Henry upstairs and purposefully made herself feel his empty stomach growling until the light underneath the door was shadowed for a moment, and he got up to find a tray with a plate of lasagna and a handwritten note. All it said was, ‘Grounded.’

He crumpled the note and tossed it in the wastebasket, but his anger wasn’t all consuming enough to stop him from wolfing down the lasagna. Emma pricked at his conscience just enough to get him to go brush his teeth before he went to bed, and she resisted the urge to speed up the process as he fell into a deep, sullen sleep.

Once she was sure he was dreaming, she reached into the wastebasket and pulled out the note. She traced her fingers over the letters and read all of the words that weren’t there. Then she slipped the note in her pocket and walked down the hall to Regina’s room.

She hovered just through the door, one of her heels still poking through the wood uncomfortably. Regina was sitting up against her headboard in a robe, with her shoulders hunched and a pair of reading glasses hanging from her fingers. Her eyes were blinking slowly and deliberately, almost as if she was trying to cry but couldn’t.

Emma hadn’t been prepared for her to look so small and helpless. She thought very seriously about pushing back through the door and going back to Henry’s room. Regina sniffed haughtily, displeased with herself, and the expression made Emma smile. She moved forward into the room and sat on the edge of the bed.

Regina pulled her knees to her chest and inhaled shakily.

“Shit, Regina, I’m sorry.” Emma reached for her hand without thinking.

Just before her fingertips made contact, Regina inhaled sharply and lifted her head. “Daniel?”


	6. Chapter 6

* * *

 

_Holy shit._ Emma cleared her throat self-consciously and shifted forward a few more inches. “Regina?” she tried again.

Impossibly dark eyes snapped in her direction, the genuine eye contact so unfamiliar and unexpected that Emma threw herself backwards and landed with a hard thump on the floor. “Ow.” Her wings and legs had gotten tangled up and she struggled to sort herself out.

“You’re not Daniel.” Regina’s voice was flat but her face, as she peered over the edge of the bed, was so pale Emma thought she was going to pass out. She reached out automatically to touch her and only realized what she’d done when Regina yanked backward violently. “You’re. Not. Daniel.”

“No, I’m not Daniel,” Emma groused, finally able to get herself up off the floor. She stretched out her wings and shook them so the feathers would fold up properly. Regina retreated back to the headboard, her bare heels scrambling against the duvet. “For fuck’s sake, I’m not going to -”

_Hurt you,_ she finished in her mind, finally recognizing Regina’s ‘fear’ as a kind of manic breakdown in the works. “God, you’re just like Henry,” she breathed, sinking down onto the corner of the bed again. “It’s okay.”

Regina had a hand pressed to her collarbone, eyes tracking from Emma’s wings to her outstretched, open palms and back. Emma did her best to hold perfectly still, swallowing down hard on knowing how many rules she was somehow in violation of right now. “You’re not Daniel,” Regina repeated again, but this time her voice cracked and tears filled her eyes.

“Emma. My name is Emma. It’s okay.” Emma wasn’t actually sure it was okay, because Regina could see her. Really, actually was looking right at her and not just out of the corners of her eyes like babies and dying people could. She took a deep breath. “You can see me?” she checked.

Regina nodded, her hand still pressed to her lips, holding back sobs.

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

Regina opened her mouth to answer but her lips only trembled and she couldn’t manage more than a squeak, finally settling for just holding out three of her own fingers. Emma nodded and scrambled for the next logical question. “Who is Daniel?”

She hadn’t necessarily been expecting Regina to lash out at her, but she caught her easily anyways, deflecting her ineffectual hits and getting her into a hold that was mostly hug. Regina was shaking and boneless and Emma pressed her cheek to her hair and _listened_.

“I’m not Daniel,” she murmured eventually, when Regina calmed and relaxed a little bit against her. The woman stiffened at the words and Emma winced, counted to five. “I’m sorry. I’m Emma. I’m Henry’s...” She trailed off. She didn’t actually want to say the word ‘angel.’ It felt somehow presumptuous.

Regina inhaled deeply and Emma was prepared when she pulled out of the hold and walked composedly to the chair in the corner, adjusting her silk robe as she went. Emma lifted her eyebrows at the expanse of leg the garment left exposed, and didn’t quite manage to change her face before Regina turned to look at her again.

“You look different,” was all she said, her eyebrow arching slowly as she pointedly looked Emma up and down.

“Different from what?”

“From the sniveling little twerp who’s been avoiding me and neglecting Henry all these years.”

“Oh.” Emma frowned in understanding. “You could see him, too? Have you been able to see me this whole time?”

Regina shook her head and rubbed at her eyes. “It - I - not like this. You...” She took another deep breath and eyed Emma again. Emma wasn’t optimistic enough to label the look in her eyes ‘appreciation,’ not when she was pretty sure she was still wearing her blue jeans and leather jacket and Regina looked better in her _pajamas_. “You look _real_.”

Emma risked a couple of steps across the carpet, and when Regina didn’t flinch she closed the distance, sinking to her knees in front of the chair. “ _How can you see me?_ ” she whispered urgently, planting her hands on Regina’s forearms. Any second now, Michael was going to swoop down and yank her back himself, but _god_ , Regina’s face was so beautiful this close.

Regina’s eyes were all pupil, no iris, as she looked directly at Emma’s face. Emma had no idea how long it had been since a living human looked at her but the feeling was indescribable. Regina’s skin was warm and there was an actual pulse drumming against Emma’s fingers. “Please stop touching me,” Regina said slowly.

It took Emma a few seconds to process the words, which were so different than what her hands were hearing, but as soon as she did she shifted back and sat on her heels. Regina shut her eyes and Emma watched her breathe.

“Are you always going to be here?” she asked finally, without opening her eyes. Emma poked at her thoughts cautiously, like a kid poking at a scab, but Regina had put up a shockingly strong wall and tearing it down seemed counterintuitive.

“I’ll always be with Henry.”

“Can you -” Regina swallowed down a sob and continued. “Can you stop me from seeing you?”

“I don’t know why you’re seeing me right now. So no. Probably not.” Emma closed her eyes and looked down at herself, examining her own energy as best she could. She pulled at one connection and felt Henry on the other end, and there next to it was one thin, tenuous thread that, when plucked, made Regina gasp and flex her fingers. “Sorry.”

_This is a problem_ , Emma thought, pulling more cautiously at the connection and unable to find a place to cut it. She didn’t know how it existed and she wasn’t even sure breaking it was a good idea. _Gabriel, where are you when I need you?_

“Can I ask a question?”

Regina waved a hand. “By all means,” she said dryly.

“What happened to Daniel?”

It was completely the wrong question and it broke apart all of the composure that Regina had built back up. Emma scrambled to correct herself somehow. “Look, you don’t actually have to say it, just let me -” She reached out for Regina’s hand, but it was ripped away.

“Get out.”

“But I -”

_Out!_ The thought slammed into her and Emma threw up her wings defensively, feeling her heels skid along the carpet and through several walls before she came to an abrupt stop against a tree in the back yard. The impact made the branches shiver and several apples dropped down onto the grass. Emma sank to her knees and took stock of body parts that were experiencing pains that seemed more than just phantom.

With a grunt of effort, she levered herself up and grabbed a tree branch for stability, waiting for a second hit. But the night was quiet, and eventually the pain drained out of her. Emma stomped her muddy boots back into the house and went right where she’d told Regina she would be.

Henry sleeping so deeply he wasn’t even dreaming. Emma curled up next to him and buried her face in his hair.

* * *

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay; I had a really busy weekend and didn't have much time to fic. Fic being a verb, and all. 
> 
> Thank you so much for your comments! I haven't been replying because I am hideously terrible at keeping secrets and I'm really afraid of ruining everything for you. I am trying 'answer' questions via the fic itself (see, fic was a noun just then, isn't language fun?), so if there's something specifically irking you about the universe (but not the plot) then say so. I drink a lot of coffee and stay up really late and I've thought a lot about the mechanics of this specific angelverse.

* * *

 

The next morning was a Saturday. Henry woke up when the smell of pancakes hit his nose (somewhat assisted by Emma, who was getting bored) but even after he was dressed, he didn’t go downstairs, pulling a book out from underneath his pillow and and thumbing through it without actually reading it.

“Henry?” The voice was Regina’s, but the tone was somewhat frighteningly cheerful.

“Yeah, Mom?” Henry replied warily, pulling his book up in front of his face like a shield.

“Come downstairs, sweetie! It’s time for breakfast.” She was practically singing instead of speaking.

Henry gulped and blinked at his door, not moving. _Me neither, kid_ , Emma shook her head, shoving both hands in her jacket pockets and hunching her shoulders down. She wasn’t about to reach out to try and suss out Regina’s mood. She had promised to stay with Henry and that’s what she was going to do until Gabriel told her it would be okay to do anything else. She’d been reckless last night, but the thought of losing Henry was terrifying. Emma could be good. She _would_ be good.

“Henry! Pancakes! They have chocolate chips!”

Henry was probably the bravest kid ever, Emma decided as he squared his shoulders. “Coming, Mom!”

Emma slunk along behind him, trying to stay as small as possible. Light was pouring into the kitchen from the open curtains, and there was a stack of perfect pancakes, studded with chocolate chips, sitting at Henry’s place. Regina smiled at him with all of her teeth, her cheeks stretched apart so far it hurt to look at her. “I thought we would have a treat, since it’s Saturday.”

“Oh - kay,” Henry breathed, climbing up onto his stool and lifting his fork slowly. “Mom, are you okay?”

“Of course I’m okay, honey. Why wouldn’t I be okay?” If Regina’s hair was any more perfect it would belong on a cartoon character. Even her blue jeans had been ironed. Emma leaned cautiously against the door frame and decided against making any sudden movements.

“You’re not eating,” Henry noted.

Regina wiped her hands self-consciously on her apron but didn’t dim her smile. “No, sweetie, maybe I’ll have some later.” She scanned the room restlessly once Henry looked back down at his plate. Emma held her breath as her gaze went right past the door, but when she sighed in relief Regina’s face cracked just a hair.

“Henry, I was wondering if you would mind going to the store for me once you’ve finished breakfast.”

Henry took a drink of milk. “I thought I was grounded?”

“Just to the store.”

_She wants me out of the house,_ Emma realized, and she gave Henry a poke. _Stop being a smartass_.

“Okay. What do you want me to get?”

Regina handed over a list so neatly written it might as well have been typed, which Henry carelessly shoved in his pocket as he went to put his shoes on. He had to walk past Regina to do it, and Emma didn’t dare move. “Hey, Mom?”

Regina, who was squinting cautiously in Emma’s vague direction, cleared her throat and pitched her voice back up into Stepford. “Yes, sweetie?”

“What happened to your tree?”

Regina frowned and hurried to look; Emma went the long way around to avoid crossing her path, joining Henry in the back yard and placing him between her and Regina. He was standing at the tree Emma had crashed into, cautiously reaching out to touch one of the branches. It was visibly scarred and blackened. Emma winced: so that was what she had bled her pain into. _Sorry about that_ , she thought at Regina, very quietly. _Even if it was your fault, technically_ , even quieter.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Regina said, though she didn’t quite manage to sound as cheerful about it. “Go on.”

Henry didn’t believe her at all, but he adjusted his jacket and headed off down the road to town. “That was weird,” he muttered to himself, shaking his head. “I think I like her better when she’s mad.”

Emma smirked and draped an arm over his shoulders. _You and me both, kiddo._

Henry didn’t check the list until he was at the town square, and as Emma leaned over his shoulder to read it she felt... something... creep up the back of her neck, a strange tickling awareness like someone was about to jump out of the shadows and scare her. Except they were standing in the middle of the picturesque town square, and there were no shadows, only -

Emma jumped back at how close the other angel was, and she nearly ducked behind Henry for protection until she realized how idiotic and craven that was. Instead she cranked her wings out to their maximum size and gave Henry a push in the direction of the diner. Ignoring her own knee jerk response to the unfamiliar now that her charge was a safe distance, she squinted down at him. He was a couple of inches shorter than she was, and his skin was flecked with gold in a way Emma supposed was meant to be pretty but wound up looking dirty.

“Hello,” she said cautiously. She scanned around for a human nearby but there wasn’t anyone in the square. She took a deep breath, looked at him more closely, and bit back a gag reflex.

He wasn’t connected to anyone.

That wasn’t possible. Guardian angels didn’t exist on earth without their charges; the pain of the silence was immeasurable and they went back to the City pretty much immediately. Emma looked harder and saw it, finally, a single black thread stretching off towards...

“You’re Regina’s guardian,” she breathed, and clenched her fist against the urge to punch him in the face.

He sneered at Regina’s name, but quickly tried to mask it with a pained wince. “And you’re the new angel on the block,” he responded haughtily.

Emma opened her mouth, about to demand an answer from him about why he wasn’t with Regina, when he stepped forward, well into her personal energy. “Look, I know you mean well,” he began, and Emma turned her head to the side and huffed discretely to try and clear her nose of the smell of his breath. “But you won’t do anyone any good unless you can get the boy away from... that woman.”

“Regina.” Emma said the name just to wind him up, and he flinched slightly before continuing.

“I know she’s very pretty...” He eyed her knowingly and Emma fought against her need to protest the statement: attraction wasn’t something to be ashamed of, not among angels. Lovely things were lovely things; Gabriel herself purposefully wore a body that she knew Emma found attractive. He frowned when Emma didn’t respond. “But there’s nothing good there. She rejected me, you know.” He tried to make himself look wounded but Emma had always been able to tell when she was being lied to, and he wasn’t even good at lying.

“Oh, really?” she asked coolly, crossing her arms. “How did that happen?”

He skipped a few feet away, kicking his heels up like a manic Christmas elf. “I came here, much as you did, came to rescue her from the agony of losing her first guardian. When lo and behold -” He snapped his fingers and blinked in a cloud of smoke from one side of her peripheral vision to the other. Emma kept her fists clenched and her wings slightly extended, her knees in the lockdown position. “She hadn’t lost him. She’d _killed_ him.”

“I’m sure that isn’t true.” Emma didn’t even have to think about it. There was no way a human could kill an angel. Angels were, technically speaking, not even alive. “Why are you lying? How are you lying?”

He pressed a long-nailed hand to his chest. “Lying?! I’m not lying! I’m in fear for my life!”

Emma narrowed her eyes. “I don’t think so. You stay away from Henry. And Regina, for that matter.” She turned and stomped towards the diner, where she could see Henry talking to Ruby in the window.

“Go on then,” he waved her back in the direction of Regina’s house. “Ask her what happened to her _precious_ Daniel.”

Emma felt her stride wobble and hated herself for knowing she’d let him see that he’d hit his mark. She whirled around. “You smell like shit, you should really know that. _Asshole_.”

* * *

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

* * *

 

_Oh my god, I need a shower_ , Emma blurted as soon as she was back with Henry. She shook herself out, all of the junk energy pooling at the tips of her fingers and making her balk at touching him. Ruby’s wolf whined sympathetically.

Henry was sitting at the counter, winding back and forth on the stool as he chatted with Ruby. Emma decided that the shopping could wait a few minutes while she processed what had happened and tried to find something to wipe her hands with.

_What’s his deal?_ she queried the wolf tentatively, not sure if he actually spoke or if he was really into his wolf costume.

_You mean Gold?_ The wolf lifted his hackles and growled before consciously checking himself and shaking it off. _He’s that woman’s guardian._

_Regina_ , Emma corrected. _She has a name._

The wolf dropped his head down on his forepaws and lowered his ears. _Forgive us if we don’t like using it._

Emma finally just forced enough energy down her hands that she blasted the slime off. She immediately pressed her hands to Henry’s shoulders and opened their connection wide, letting it calm her down.

_Sorry_ , she apologized after a minute, realizing that she had completely dropped the ball on the conversation.

The wolf shrugged and waved his tail idly. _It’s okay. Gold has that effect on most of us._

_So why do you take his side?_ Emma really needed to learn how to ask better questions, maybe ones that didn’t make the person she was asking shut down completely.

“Would you be any better, if your charge rejected you?” Old Man River drifted in ahead of Henry’s teacher. He had changed his robes, which were now silk and green.

Emma blinked, torn between laughing at his idea of fashion and considering his point. “What if that isn’t what happened?”

He scoffed. “Of course that’s what happened. No angel could ever leave his charge.”

_That’s it,_ Emma realized. _None of us could ever believe a thing like that could happen._ Out loud, she said, “He’s not her birth guardian, is he?”

The wolf whined and barked, and Ruby flinched, dropping a mug on the floor and shattering it. As Miss Blanchard rushed to help her clean it up, Old Man River petted the top of the wolf’s head until he calmed again. “No. That was Daniel.”

“Was?” Emma wanted the answer to be different than the one Gold had given her, down to the core of her being, and when Old Man River shook his head sadly, with his lips pressed together, she only sighed. “Shit. Well... Henry has to go grocery shopping.”

“So does Mary Margaret,” Old Man River responded. “I have such a hard time getting her to eat, anymore. Maybe if Henry came along it would be more enjoyable for her?” Emma swallowed her lingering malaise and nodded, swayed by his transparent concern for his charge. Plus, it was easier to get Henry to leave Ruby with his teacher’s help.

As Henry seriously perused his list and looked for the best deals with the eye of an eighty year old pensioner, Mary Margaret followed along behind him, more slowly, picking things up and putting them back rather than into her basket. Her guardian walked behind her with his wings drooping.

_What’s wrong?_ Emma asked cautiously.

He shook his head. _She’s been like this since... well._

Emma drew Henry’s attention to his teacher’s empty basket and he picked up on it immediately, bending his considerable charm to convincing her she needed the ingredients for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. She couldn’t keep from smiling at his easy empathy, once he was drawn out of himself.

As they debated jam flavors - Henry for strawberry, Mary Margaret for blackberry - Old Man River’s face released some of its tension and he smiled fleetingly. “He’s a good boy,” he observed paternalistically. “Mary Margaret would have loved to have one like him.”

There was a story there, and Emma could tell that he wanted her to press for it. “Why didn’t she, then?”

“Because of David.” He pursed his lips and Emma scoffed at his faux reticence. “I think it’s better if I just show you.” He touched Mary Margaret’s cheek gently, rolling the spark of an idea into her skin, and then pretended to be heavily involved in helping to choose a style of sliced bread, so that he wouldn’t have to answer any more questions. Emma rolled her eyes and reminded herself that appearances had nothing to do with the actual age of an angel, so she shouldn’t hold it against him that he was acting childish.

“Henry,” Mary Margaret said slowly as they exited the store with a paper bag each and walked slowly in the direction of Regina’s house. “I was wondering if you might... well, keep me company today.”

Henry tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

Mary Margaret hugged her paper bag close to her chest but her guardian held his hands steady on her shoulders and she pressed on. “I’d like you to come and meet my husband.”

His eyes went wide and guilty. “I didn’t know you were married!”

She smiled sadly. “I’m afraid it’s complicated.”

Emma reminded Henry that he had milk in his grocery bag, and he grimaced accordingly. “I have to go home. My mom is waiting. I’m kinda grounded.”

Mary Margaret nodded, looking mildly relieved. “Oh, that’s okay, then. I -”

“But I’ll ask her if it’s okay!” Henry blurted, his eyes wide. Emma shook her head at Old Man River: she hadn’t needed to push him at all. “Just this once, and since you’re my teacher.”

She nodded and smiled again. “Okay. I’ll meet you back here in half an hour?” She gestured at the gazebo and Henry nodded, racing off.

_Eggs, Henry, eggs!_ Emma fretted as she followed behind him and tried to keep him from tripping.

Regina wasn’t even home. A note was sitting on the counter, explaining in that obsessively neat handwriting that something had come up at work, and she would be home in time to make dinner. It didn’t even remind Henry that he was grounded. Emma would have thought it cold, if she was only reading with her eyes. Henry conscientiously put the groceries away and then ran back to the park.

He forgot to lock the door. Emma threw caution to the wind and did it for him.

 

* * *

 


	9. Chapter 9

* * *

 

Mary Margaret got quieter and quieter the longer Henry walked beside her; Emma knew that he noticed, but kept his chatter level high, trying to compensate and distract her. As it became apparent they were heading for the hospital, however, he began to get genuinely nervous. Mary Margaret’s guardian was holding her arm in the crook of his like a particularly gallant gentleman.

_Look, if this is something that Henry -_ Emma began, beginning to become affronted that he would put her charge in a difficult position just because he didn’t want to talk about something.

_It’s not so terrible_ , he reassured her. After a long pause, though: _If you’re a human._

Emma fisted her hands inside of her pockets and took the warning for what it was.

“Miss Blanchard,” Henry began timidly as he followed her through the sliding doors and into the elevators.

She gave him an attempt at a smile. “Do you know what a coma is, Henry?”

His eyes flared wide, but he nodded. “It’s when someone won’t wake up.”

The walls of the hospital were a vague shade of pink that did little to calm Henry or Emma, who was putting as much of herself as possible into calming Henry down. She was proud of him for how collected he looked, his face as grave and still as a little adult.

Mary Margaret pushed open a half closed door and drew aside a curtain. “Henry, this is David.”

The man on the bed was pale and thin, but even Emma could see how handsome he would be if his face was animated. Henry edged forward to look at his slowly blinking eyes. “It’s nice to meet you, sir. My name’s Henry Mills.”

Mary Margaret smiled and laid her hand on Henry’s shoulder, right through Emma’s supporting hand. “He can’t answer you, Henry.”

“Can he hear me?”

“I believe so,” Mary Margaret hummed, moving forward to brush David’s hair back from his face. Emma squeezed Henry’s shoulder: it was unnerving, the sightless eyes staring out of the slack face.  “I come here everyday to read to him. I thought maybe a change of voice would be nice?” She lifted a book from the bedside table - Hans Christian Anderson’s Fairy Tales - and held it out.

Henry didn’t want to, but without so much as a nudge from Emma he nodded gamely and took the book. Mary Margaret hooked a second chair forward and he cleared his throat. Emma was about to settle in and help him with the big words when Mary Margaret’s guardian drew her attention. _Look_. Emma nearly protested that she was looking, when she saw where his finger was pointing, crouched down, and froze.  

There was a weeping angel under the bed, limp wings splayed across the linoleum and hands pressed against her ears. Her eyes were wide open but totally unseeing, mouth open in a silent scream.

Emma dropped to her belly on the floor and reached out, grabbing and shaking a wrist. The angel rocked back and forth with the motion but didn’t react in any way, her hands staying pressed in place. “Believe me, I’ve tried everything I can think of. She doesn’t hear me anymore.” Old Man River lowered himself to the floor and crossed his legs, tracing his fingertips over the closest wing feathers.

Emma felt her guts twist with pained sympathy. The guardian angels of people in love tended to be very close, to put it mildly. With a glance at Henry, absorbed in the book, she carefully pushed at the angel’s energy, to see if she could get a reaction. Her touch slid right off, unable to find purchase against a solid wall of silence. “What is this?”

The old man shook his head as he visibly worked to stifle tears. “She’s been like this for years. She won’t wake up. David won’t wake up. We don’t know what to do.”

Emma laid her cheek on the floor and _looked_ , determined not to flinch away no matter how much she wanted to. “You think this has something to do with Regina,” she guessed quietly. “That’s why you hate her.”

He sighed heavily and leaned back against the wall, tipping his head back, apparently unable to even summon up anger. “It happened the night Daniel di -” His breath hitched; as unable to consciously lie as every angel Emma had ever met, with the exception of Gold, he amended his statement. “Disappeared.”

“You don’t actually know, then.” Emma kept her voice soft, determined not to sound judgmental. Not when she was only looking at the aftermath, and it was one of the most terrifying things she’d ever seen. “Nobody knows what happened.”

“Aurora does,” the old man replied, still absently running his fingers over the feathers within reach. “But I don’t know how to wake her up to ask her.”

* * *

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

* * *

 

Henry was quiet on the way home, his energy muted and his hands deep in his pockets. Emma walked beside him, unconsciously mimicking his posture and gait, mulling over everything she’d seen at the hospital and trying to figure out what the hell she was supposed to do.

Emma hadn’t been a human for very long, but she’d been an angel for what amounted to several of those lifetimes, and she’d never seen anything like this. She hadn’t even known angels could slip into comas. Or whatever was going on with Aurora.

The real issue, of course, was why hadn’t the archs intervened with her yet? Aurora needed help, and she wasn’t the only one around who did. Emma knew vaguely that the archs’ ability to affect this reality was somewhat limited, but they could at least pull her back.

_Or someone could answer a damn summons!_ Emma shouted loudly, thinking hard about Gabriel. The silence she got in response was somewhat unnerving, and Emma decided not to try again.

“Hey, nerd.”

Well, shit. Emma sighed and straightened, turning with Henry in the direction of the voice. A set of unfortunately familiar faces sneered at him from a porch. Henry went cold and still inside, glancing around the square casually, looking for an adult. The street he was walking down was quiet and empty. He clenched his jaw and resumed walking, careful and slow.

He was followed.

Emma pushed back at the guardians, trying to convince them to do the right thing, but they were tinged with a familiarly unpleasant odor. _What -_ Emma started to ask, but then one of them pushed back at her. The touch was hard and bitter, and Emma reacted instinctively. _Run, Henry!_

He responded to the shove and Emma kept her feet practically in his shoes, carrying him forward as best she could. “Holy shit holy shit holy shit,” she muttered under her breath. They were nearly to the house when Henry cried out and stumbled - one of the boys had thrown a rock, and Emma had been so focused on running that she hadn’t caught it in time. He landed hard on his side and grabbed at his now-bleeding leg. His fear was making them both hyperventilate. Emma threw herself down on top of him. “Stop! He’s just a kid!”

_He’s_ her _kid. Why should we help him?_

The boys had swarmed forward and one of them took a sprinting start into what was going to be a vicious kick to Henry’s ribs. Emma tried to collect the energy to stop him but his momentum was too great and the guardians were pushing back against her. She did the only other thing she could think of, took a huge breath, and made herself as solid as possible.

The impact cracked loudly and shoved her back against Henry; her vision swimming with the stars of pain she’d only half remembered how to deal with, she pushed desperately at Henry, urging him up and onto the porch. He was too scared to uncurl. Emma felt another hit carving through the air towards his spine - none of them had realized it wasn’t Henry that took the first one - and she flailed out, thinking to catch the foot before it had a chance. Being this solid was making her weak and she wouldn’t be able to hold up much longer. She needed Henry to get up and run inside.

A red-laced sneaker slammed into her shoulder, but only slowed, dragging painfully through her half-solid body.

“Henry, get inside!”

With the words came a surge of energy that Emma didn’t hesitate to grab hold of, hurling the kid out of her and whirling to grab Henry’s shoulders, throwing him up onto the porch past Regina. He finally gained his feet and stumbled into the house, and Regina advanced down the steps like a fury. The boys scattered, suddenly looking like nothing more than the children they were.

Clutching her ribs, Emma scrambled into the house after Henry and dropped onto her knees in the foyer. Regina was at Henry’s side in a second, turning his chin from side to side, wiping at his tear-streaked cheeks. “Are you hurt?”

“My leg,” he muttered, and glanced down at the torn jeans and the blood spotting his shoe. Regina ripped the hole in the jeans wider matter-of-factly and checked the cut, which was wide but shallow and already beginning to clot over.

“Go change and wash up,” she said, running her fingers across his cheeks and through his hair, as if still searching for marks. “I’ll be up in a minute.”

He nodded, still on the brink of tears, and surged forward to hug her desperately before going. Regina stayed frozen in place even after he was halfway to his bathroom, arms hugging air. Emma wheezed and leveraged herself upright, trying to work up the energy to blink up rather than have to walk up all the stairs. She couldn’t, and was about to start the climb, when the shock of Regina’s hand brought her to stillness. “You,” Regina breathed, her fingers slipping underneath the collar of Emma’s jacket and tugging slightly. “Come on.”

Emma let herself be led like a puppy to the formal living room. Regina pushed her down towards the couch and Emma grunted in pain as she fell in a graceless heap, wings splayed akimbo across the cushions. She poked her fingers into her own ribs and sucked in a breath: they hurt a lot.

“Do you think they’re broken?” Regina asked quietly, shooing Emma’s hand away and repeating the motion herself. “Can you even break your bones?”

“Do I even have bones?” Emma asked rhetorically, but Regina’s touch wasn’t nearly as painful as her own and she sighed. “That helps. Whatever you’re doing.”

Regina glanced up into her face and deliberately flattened her hand against her ribcage. “Thank you.”

“For what?” Emma breathed, trying to think around the fact that Regina’s face was very close to her own and the fact of her hand meant that there was a very good chance that she would feel it if Regina kissed her.

“Protecting Henry.”

_Oh_. Emma couldn’t help but smile self-consciously and shift backwards. “It’s kind of my job.”

Regina huffed and poked Emma’s injured shoulder with her free hand; Emma yelped and jerked, only to have Regina catch her and ease her back onto the sofa. “That isn’t your job.” She moved both hands to Emma’s cheeks and wiped away tears that Emma hadn’t even been aware of crying. “ _This_ isn’t your job.” She hesitated visibly and shifted forward, planting a deliberate and lingering kiss in the middle of Emma’s forehead. The contact radiated outwards and Emma went boneless, sagging forwards in relief as the pain in her ribs began to dissipate.

“This place is really fucked up,” she muttered, and felt Regina’s lips twitch against her skin.

“I’ve always suspected as much,” she murmured, pushing her forehead against Emma’s and breathing quietly. Emma made herself breathe, feeling the same air, then suddenly pulled back.

“I mean - you.” An eyebrow arched and Emma blushed, realizing how the half-formed statement sounded. “You’re amazing. You can see us! You should be - we should be all about this! You’re some kind of miracle.”

Regina pursed her lips and started to sit back on her heels, but Emma grabbed at her wrists and slid her fingers down to twine their hands, holding her in place. “Instead this complete asshole has the whole town against you, and the only one who knows why is in a damn coma, and no one back home will answer me.”

Arching eyebrows slid down into a frown. “In a coma? Who?”

“Shit,” Emma tried to remember Aurora’s charge’s name. “Mary Margaret’s husband.” It started with a D, but she wasn’t about to say Daniel.

“David,” Regina supplied, her face paling.

Emma tightened her fingers. “No, no. Don’t shut down right now. I need someone to talk to me.” She pushed a little bit of energy down through her fingers, hoping it wouldn’t backfire.

Regina shook her head to clear it and nodded. “David was there when they took D -” She stuttered and clenched her jaw, before deliberately fixing her eyes on Emma’s. “When they took Daniel from me.”

“When who took Daniel from you?”

“He said his name was Samyaza.” Emma could tell that Regina wasn’t finished, so she kept her reaction to the name from showing and waited while the other woman steeled herself. “My mother was with him.”

* * *

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Updates might be a tad bit slower over the next few days; I wanted to get you guys here, at least, and then hopefully you'll bear with me while I work out this next bit? (and also try to get some RL things done)
> 
> 2\. On that note - I'm going to be spinning a lot of angel lore into this. The guardian construction is mine, and it goes without saying that anything in Storybrooke is as well, but I'm trying to keep all of the lore around archs as, well, canon as possible. So, there's, like, a minor possibility that looking stuff up could be fun for you guys.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go...

* * *

 

Henry sat on the edge of the bathtub with a mug of hot chocolate in his hands, trying bravely not to hiss and draw away as Regina dabbed at his leg with antiseptic. “Sorry,” she murmured.

“It’s okay,” he whimpered.

“Well.” She sat back slightly and eyed the abrasion. “I don’t think we’ll need to cut it off.” The joke was forced and Regina couldn’t meet his eyes, but Henry laughed obligingly, and the sound loosened some of the tension in her back. “Henry, have -” She stopped and bit her lip, clearly deciding if she wanted to know the answer to her question.

“They never hit me before,” Henry said quietly. “It’s been pretty bad but this was the first time that -” Regina gently took Henry’s mug from him so that she could wrap both her arms around him. Henry pressed his face to the crook of her shoulder and exhaled hard, trying not to cry and failing. “I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry I’m such a loser.”

“ _Oh, Henry, no_ ,” Regina and Emma blurted at the same time, Emma starting forward before consciously checking herself, not wanting to intrude. Regina saw the movement and nodded minutely. Emma gratefully wrapped her arms around her boy, pressing her cheek to his head and radiating love to him.

“You’re not a loser,” Regina said, shifting slightly so that her arms overlapped with Emma’s. “ _They’re_ the losers, for not seeing how wonderful you are.”

Emma couldn’t make Henry believe something, but she could make him want to believe something, and hope that maybe one day he would rise up out of his singular, depressive fog and be able to believe it.

“Will you stay?” Emma asked quietly, while Henry brushed his teeth. “He wants you to, and I -” She trailed off, unsure how to explain that she wanted them both in the same room, so she wouldn’t have to move back and forth throughout the night, chasing nightmares away. She doubted Regina would admit to having nightmares, but they were there in the corners of her eyes and she couldn’t bear the thought of them.

Regina did not acknowledge her directly, but tentatively made the request of Henry, who pretended that he was granting her a favor and then fell asleep clutching the fabric of her sleeve in his hand. Emma waited until Regina’s eyelids were drooping on their own, and then gave her a discrete push.

Then she tucked the blankets over both of them and walked out to the back yard.

_I know you can hear me_ , she thought furiously at Gabriel. _I know you can hear me and so help me if you don’t answer me I’m going to -_ She couldn’t think of an adequate threat, and growled in frustration. _I know you can hear me!_

_She can’t, though_.

Emma snapped her head in the direction of the response and watched as a figure of light stepped out of the apple tree. _Who the hell are you?_

The light coalesced into a more identifiable figure, a woman a full head taller than she was, with lean, gamine features and short, dark hair. “I’m Tamiel,” she said, speaking comfortably out loud despite the fact that Emma could see at least two sets of wings. “I’m Gabriel’s.”

“Gabriel’s what?” Emma asked, her skin buzzing with the knowledge that she was significantly outranked in a way she didn’t understand. “Gabriel’s messenger?”

She smiled in amusement, green eyes sparkling. “Yes, why not? I’m the messenger’s messenger.” She laughed lightly, and gestured Emma closer. Emma felt momentarily compelled, but then abruptly the pressure eased. “Sorry. I’m still not used to... that.”

“Are you an archangel?” Emma asked, cautiously moving forward anyways, liking the angel’s manners and her level, serious eyebrows. “You can’t be a guardian.”

Tamiel looked as if she wanted to laugh again, but she bit her lips against the urge, shaking her head. “You’ve only met two kinds of us,” she noted with her head cocked to one side. “You’ll learn, if you last long enough. I’m not an archangel. I’m a Grigori.” She paused, frowning. “Well, I was a Grigori. Maybe that’s not really a thing anymore. I’ve never been clear on whether or not it was a title or a type. I guess I should ask or something.”

“What’s a Grigori?” Emma asked cautiously, halfway to being charmed by the babbling.

Reminded of the conversation, Tamiel’s eyes widened. “Oh! They also called us ‘the watchers.’ We were like you, but, you know... not. Um. Human first.” She peered down into Emma’s face. “I don’t think I’ve ever actually spoken to a guardian before. Wow. They really do just kind of... turn you, don’t they? Did they ask you first?” She poked Emma in the forehead and Emma yelped: the touch was like an electric charge, ruffling her feathers all the way to the tips.

“Ugh. Don’t do that again.” Emma clapped her hand to her forehead.

“Oops,” Tamiel said mildly, not looking repentant, waiting amiably for Emma’s ears to stop ringing.

“Why are you here?” Emma groused, a headache forming. “And why can’t Gabriel hear me?”

“Well, it’s not so much that she can’t,” Tamiel hedged, leaning back against the apple tree and looking up at the sky. “It’s just... you know. None of them have the best concept of how time works here. That’s why humans work so much better as guardians.”

Emma had always suspected that time worked differently in the City than it did on Earth - since she seemed to be assigned to the same several decades of Earth-time over and over without any concern - but it was somewhat nice to have confirmation. “So why are you here?”

Tamiel straightened and gave her a flourishing bow. “Because I _specialize_ in timely interventions.” She laughed at herself and shook her head. “Honestly, I spent thousands of years here. Plenty of time for me to get the hang of human life spans, even if I never had one.”

Her face went uncomfortably quiet and still, even the laugh lines around her eyes smoothing as she lost herself into thought. “I’m here because of Samyaza.”

“The one who took Regina’s guardian? You know him?”

She smiled fleetingly but it wasn’t a happy expression, and it filled Emma with dread. “Know him? I fell with him.”

Emma had barely processed the words before she stumbled backwards. “You’re a fallen?”

Tamiel slouched against the tree again, shrugging. “I was. Maybe that distinction will always be there. I don’t know. Gabriel says it won’t, but...” She held up her hand and watched it as she slowly brightened herself, losing some of her human guise as she looked at her own energy. She was as bright as Gabriel, or Michael, but Emma could see shadows, lingering patches of silence that flowed through and around the light. “Can an angel ever recover from being alone?”

Emma felt the question all the way down into the pit of her stomach. Angels were never alone. Guardians always had their charges, and in the City they all had each other, a constant chorus of companions inside of their heads. The thought of being alone was terrifying, and she hadn’t even been born with the chorus in her head. “But you’re not... evil?”

The question unexpectedly lit her face again, and she laughed. “What does that word even mean, ‘evil?’ Do you understand what you’re asking me?” Emma scowled, but Tamiel stopped laughing and answered seriously. “Gabriel loves me. I don’t think Gabriel would love me if I wasn’t redeemable. She sees things forwards and backwards, and she wouldn’t lie to me.”

“But Samyaza?”

She nodded, and her eyebrows slid down, her entire face darkening. “I’m afraid of Samyaza. And I’m not afraid of very much, not anymore. Gabriel -” Every time she said the name, she smiled and glowed a little bit. “Gabriel doesn’t understand fear. And she doesn’t know what happened here, not really.”

“What did happen here?”

“It’s hard, you know,” Tamiel tilted her head back and looked at the stars again. “To just watch. Even if that’s all you’re made to do, when you’re alone and surrounded by all of these... _beings_ , it’s hard to just... let them _be_. You start to wonder if maybe you can make them... better? Different? Maybe just ‘yours.’ And then you do it once and it’s just...” She sucked in a breath that seemed almost sexual, her eyes closed and her fingertips tracing along the scarred tree branch. “So easy.”

She opened her eyes and stared directly at Emma as she planted her hand against the tree. “Creating life is one of the easiest things you can do here,” she murmured, and underneath her palm the bark healed and smoothed, blossoms rolling down to the ends of the branches and apples swelling in seconds. “But _sustaining_ life,” she removed her hand, and the apples blackened, withered, and dropped. The branches curled, cracking and dying. “That’s one of the hardest.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Emma suddenly realized that she was standing much, much closer to Tamiel than she had been a few seconds ago.

“Because no one else will.” She sighed down into Emma’s face, and gently pushed her backwards. “They don’t know. Samyaza was here, and now everything is wrong, and they don’t know because they can’t understand it. I’ve been here. The only way out is for you to see what you’re doing.”

“I don’t want _out_ ,” Emma blurted. “I don’t want to leave them. I want to help them. I _love_ them.”

Tamiel gasped, looking at Emma with wide, almost awestruck eyes. “I said almost the exact same thing, once.” She reached out and held Emma by her shoulders, looking into her eyes. “No matter what happens, remember that you have one thing Samyaza does not.”

Emma felt taller, braced between the taller angel’s hands and looking into eyes that were older than she could even imagine, and she took a deep breath. “What’s that?”

“ _Love_. He’s more powerful than you, and he’ll laugh at you, and he’ll make you feel as small as a human, but don’t forget that he can’t love, and you’re brimming with it.” She touched Emma’s cheek, watching to see if she understood.

“If I call you, will you come?”

Tamiel shook her head. “I can’t.”

“Because you’re afraid of him?” Emma goaded.

“No.” Tamiel stepped back and folded her wings up, beginning to brighten back into pure energy again. “Because I’m afraid of Regina.”

* * *

 


	12. Chapter 12

* * *

 

Regina woke slowly, like a child, only in the final moments before wakefulness registering that she was in an unfamiliar location. Emma grounded her absently, keeping her from startling and ruining the first decent sleep she’d had in a while. She squinted down at Henry, checking to see if he was still sleeping, and spoke when she saw that he was. “Where are you?”

Emma reached out and touched Regina’s foot over the blankets.

“Oh.” Bleary as an owl, Regina edged herself more upright and blinked in her direction. Emma propped her head back onto both fists, elbows on her knees. “Is something wrong?”

Emma thought about not answering, but Regina’s face was so open and kind, and it would hurt her if she didn’t. “I had a visitor last night. She gave me a lot to think about.”

Regina wanted to move forward, but Henry was still sleeping with his fingers tangled around hers. “Something bad?”

Emma shook her head and covered her eyes with her hands. “I don’t know,” she groaned. “I don’t know anything about this. I’m just a - I mean, for fuck’s sake, I didn’t even finish high school!”

“Come here,” Regina beckoned, and Emma made herself hesitate before crawling up to spoon against Henry’s other side. Regina laid her head back down on the pillow so they were eye to eye over the top of his head. “Talk to me. Who came to visit?”

Emma drew in a shaky breath. “She said she was a Grigori.”

“She?” Emma nodded. Regina was frowning and forcing herself to keep still. “Are you sure?”

“It doesn’t mean much to them,” Emma admitted, “but they seem to have preferences.” She realized what Regina was thinking. “Oh. No, she wasn’t Samyaza. She said her name was Tamiel. We can’t lie about our names.”

“I’ve never heard of her,” Regina shook her head.

“No? She’s heard of you.” Emma laughed and only sobered when she realized that Regina had stopped breathing. “Not - I mean, I don’t think you’re -”

“Am I some kind of monster?”

Emma’s eyes flew open. “ _No_.” She reached out and tried to grab hold of Regina’s chin, to force her to make eye contact, but Regina shook her off and extricated herself from the bed, pacing out into the hall. Emma rearranged Henry’s limbs around his pillow and followed. She caught Regina’s wrist. “Look at you. You’re not a monster. You’re _wonderful_.” She pulled her into an awkward hug that the other woman fought briefly.

“So why did this... _Grigori_ come to talk to you about me, then?” Regina eventually asked, sullenly resigned to being hugged.

Emma squeezed her shoulders and pretended not to notice Regina’s arms creeping up around her waist to hug back. “She didn’t. She came to warn me, I think.”

“About what?”

Regina’s cheek was pressed to her collarbone and Emma thought about willing her jacket away so it would touch her bare skin for a few seconds before she caught herself. “Something to do with Samyaza. She wasn’t actually all that clear.” Emma scowled. “She basically just said, ‘Hey, shit might go down, and he’s frightening as fuck, but remember that you love Regina and -’”

Regina lifted her head. “Wait, what?”

Emma walked back through what she’d just said and winced. “Yeah. That. Sorry, it’s just, I mean, I’m an angel and love is kind of -” Regina pulled away and paced back two steps, until her back hit the wall. “Something we do? It’s really not a big deal. Unless, you know, you want it to be a big deal?” Emma blew out a frustrated breath at Regina’s silence. “This is totally not what this conversation is about right now. This is about Samyaza.”

Regina swallowed hard and spoke slowly, carefully. “When he took Daniel.” She had to take a deep breath and wrap her arms around herself and Emma wanted _desperately_ to hug her. “He said he had to because Daniel loved me. And it was forbidden.”

“What?” Emma frowned. “Well, that seals it, then. Dude is definitely not pitching for the home team anymore.” Mindful of the fact that Regina had nowhere to run, and she didn’t want to make her feel trapped, Emma stepped forward slowly and touched Regina’s shoulders. “No love is _ever_ forbidden, Regina. It’s all we are, is love. Of course Daniel loved you. Of course _I_ love you. You’re beautiful, and despite everything that’s happened you still manage to be kind and - _oh_.” Emma’s jaw dropped. “That’s it.”

“That’s what?” Regina asked, staggering briefly as Emma let go of her shoulders and paced away.

“You’re not evil.”

Regina snorted and regained most of her composure. “Thanks for that,” she muttered sarcastically.

“No, you _should_ be. You - I mean, your fucking _guardian_ is a mad man who hates you where he should love you, and yet you’re still a good person.”

“A lot of people would disagree with you.”

“If they could see your heart they wouldn’t.” Emma raked her fingers through her hair. “I just figured this out,” she muttered, mostly to herself.

“Congratulations. Care to share with the rest of the class?” Regina arched a single eyebrow and tapped her finger against her elbow pointedly.

“It really isn’t helpful that every time you’re sarcastic I want to kiss your face off,” Emma blurted.

Regina’s eyes widened for a split second, her gaze dropping down to Emma’s lips before dramatically rolling. “Can we please focus?”

“Sorry,” Emma muttered, shoving her hands in her jacket pockets and backing up a step. “I’m not really used to talking around people who can actually hear me.”

Regina’s eyebrow arched again before she scowled and consciously lowered it. “Can you please keep it in your pants long enough to tell me your grand revelation?”

Emma glared. “I take it back. Your sarcasm is not attractive at all. But I _think_ Samyaza is trying to turn you.”

“Turn me into what?”

“A frog,” Emma deadpanned, but she couldn’t hold onto the facial expression for long enough for the joke to be effective. “Turn you evil.”

Regina frowned, shaking her head. “Why would he want to do that?”

“Probably for the same reason we’re able to have this conversation right now.”

“So you don’t know.”

Emma scowled and tried to disseminate, but again ran aground on her inability to actually lie. “Not yet. But I’ll find out.”

* * *

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short chapter, but I wanted to let you know that a) I wasn't dead and b) I'm painfully aware of how long it's been. My RL job picked up and I had to do a lot of things that weren't writing, and I'm pretty sorry about that. I'm not going to leave this unfinished, so don't worry. It's just, you know, life and stuff. As someone who compulsively checks on fics that haven't been updated in a year and then cries about it, I would never do that.
> 
> (Also if anyone wants to find me on tumblr, it's booklandreeve.tumblr.com.)

* * *

 

“I need to talk to Miss Blan - Mary Margaret’s guardian again.”

Regina didn’t react visibly to her words, continuing to fuss with the pan on the stove. Emma propped her chin on her hands and absently kept the the pan from getting too hot and scorching Henry’s eggs, moving the excess heat from the stove to Regina’s coffee cup.

Regina picked up her coffee, took a sip, and shot a wary glance in Emma’s direction.

“It’s been made abundantly clear that no one is paying attention to anything I’m doing,” Emma rolled her eyes. “Turn down the burner and I’ll stop.”

Regina wanted to open her mouth and snap that she knew perfectly well how to cook eggs - Emma could read the lines of the entire argument in her face and almost wished they could have it - but Henry was sitting at the table with a book between his elbows. Regina took another sip of coffee and reached out and deliberately turned the burner up.

“Ooops,” she murmured, as the eggs seared to the bottom of the pan and began to smoke. “Henry, I’m afraid I’ve burned the eggs. How would you feel about going to Granny’s for breakfast, instead?”

Emma rolled her eyes at Regina’s smug little smile. “Well played.” She and Henry raced upstairs to find his hat and scarf, and by the time they were back down in the foyer, Regina was already standing on the porch with her coat buttoned and her gloves on.

As Regina and Henry walked hand in hand down the street, Emma trailed happily behind them, letting their emotions rattle between her like a live wire. She suspected it was having some kind of amplification effect, as they both became more and more happy. By the time they reached the square, all three of them were giggling.

The startled look on Ruby’s face when Regina walked into the diner with an enormous smile lighting up her face made Emma snort and start laughing all over again. “Hey, Henry,” she smiled cautiously. “Madame Mayor.”

“Miss Lucas,” Regina greeted, stifling a chuckle. She pressed her fingers to her smile, attempting to smooth it. _Stop it!_ she shouted. Emma winced.

_Ouch. You don’t have to scream at me like that._ Emma took a deep breath a consciously cooled her mood down, hoping that would be enough to halt the feedback loop. As far as she knew, there’d never been a connection like this, one angel between two people, so she wasn’t sure how any of it worked.

_I wasn’t aware I was screaming!_ Regina shouted at the same volume.

_No, look_ , and Emma made her mental voice as gentle and soft as possible, _it’s not about making your thoughts louder. You just have to want me to hear you, and I will._

_Oh_. Regina slid down into the booth across from Henry. Ruby sidled up with menus and a cup of coffee for Regina. Her smile was wary but genuine. Emma looked around for her guardian and he was standing tensely on the counter.

_Good morning_ , she greeted stridently, knowing that there was no point in pretending she wasn’t actively in contact with Regina.

Expecting backlash, she was surprised when he waved his tail, albeit cautiously. _We haven’t seen her smile in a long time._ He thought a memory at her, a much younger Regina babysitting an adorably tiny Ruby. Emma inhaled sharply when she filtered the memory and saw an unfamiliar angel crouched on the rug, absently scratching at the wolf’s ruff. _Daniel_ , the wolf nodded. Emma looked closer, pulling on the fragment of the memory until it slid into her mind and she could examine it more closely. Memories were like books, between angels - though they rarely shared them or took the time to read them, it was possible to ‘give’ an experience to another. It was how they reported to their superiors, among other things.

Emma knew she was being possessive and jealous, in a way, but she wanted to look at the angel who had been before her. He had dark hair and a sharp face, and Emma wasn’t much impressed until Regina laughed in the memory, and a beatific smile transformed his face into something that made Emma want to reach for him.

_We - I. I miss him._ The wolf’s ears drooped sadly, and before his sadness could affect Ruby, Emma reached out and playfully tugged an ear back up.

She didn’t even have to turn to identify the frisson of ice water that ran down her spine, and as the door swung open she heard Mary Margaret greet Henry. When she turned to meet her guardian’s gaze, however, she paused. _Are you -_ she paused and cleared her throat. “Are you younger all of a sudden?”

The Old Man crossed his arms self-consciously. “No.”

It was obvious, though, his skin was smoother and he had hair on his whole head, still white but long and held back in a neat braid. Emma exchanged a glance with the wolf but they didn’t need to speak to each other to decide not to press the issue. “I have an idea for Aurora,” Emma cut to the chase instead. “We have to go back there.”

Not-So-Old Man River stepped back. Echoing him, Mary Margaret took a step away from the table and Henry, whitening her knuckles on her handbag strap. “I’m not taking that woman anywhere near Aurora.” His dislike rumbled through the room, and Regina glanced nervously over her shoulder. Emma stepped forward and reached without thinking, gently touching Regina’s shoulder and concentrating on strong, calm thoughts.

Regina glanced up into her eyes and sighed, shifting into the touch and returning her attention to the conversation between Henry and Mary Margaret. Emma turned to meet Old Man River’s eyes again, tossing her head defiantly. His hands were hanging open at his sides and his mouth was open in shock, his eyes on Regina’s shoulder, which was making solid and conscious contact with Emma’s hand. “Get your head out of your ass and trust me for like ten minutes.” Trying to break him out of his shock, she changed her tactics. “I don’t have ideas very often, but this is a good one.”

The self-deprecation worked; he snorted and cut his eyes back over to her. “Ten minutes, huh? I’ll give you five.”

* * *

 


	14. Chapter 14

 

* * *

 

For all his dislike of Regina in general, and of Emma’s plan specifically, Old Man River bent an admirable amount of will towards convincing Mary Margaret to take Henry and Regina to visit David again. Emma suspected there was a history between the humans that no one had bothered to tell her about yet, and as they neared the hospital, Regina took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry I haven’t visited much,” she breathed sincerely, even if by ‘much’ she meant ‘at all’ and everyone knew it.

Mary Margaret stiffened as if she wanted to call her on it, but with a glance at Henry she only said, “It’s understandable. It’s not... it isn’t easy. Seeing him like this.” She paused, her mouth working to contain tears. Her guardian stepped up behind her and braced both shoulders. Emma blinked, distracted from the myriad of emotions in the air by the darkening of the long braid.

Regina squinted at Mary Margaret’s back. _Is -_

_Yes. Can you see him?_

Regina shook her head but her eyes were clearly straining to see something. Emma felt a flash of doubt; Mary Margaret’s guardian was being as present as a guardian could be without breaking the rules, and if she couldn’t see him clearly then she wasn’t sure if her so-called plan would work.

She distracted Henry with the vending machine, and Mary Margaret with him, and practically shoved Regina into the room. _Pull the curtain,_ she instructed, not wanting to risk one of the hospital staff seeing the curtain move unaided.

Regina did as she was told, but she was shaking, her eyes on the immobile man on the bed. “Oh,” she whispered, “I -” _I didn’t think about... actually seeing him._ Her hands pressed flat to the pockets of her slacks, she edged closer. “Hello, Deputy,” she greeted formally, peering down into his staring eyes like Henry had. “I presume you’re in there somewhere.”

Emma glanced nervously down the hall, knowing she could only keep Henry from choosing between the two flavors of granola bar the ever-responsible Mary Margaret was allowing him to have for so long. “Regina, under the bed.”

“What?” Regina responded immediately, then lifted a hand to cover her mouth.

Emma moved to the other side of the bed and gestured. “Look,” she said urgently.

Regina crouched down and her eyes swept right past Aurora. _Shit_. Henry and Mary Margaret were coming closer, Mary Margaret’s guardian too suspicious to leave Regina alone even for her allowed five minutes. “Fuck. Regina, I really hope you thank me later.”

Before Regina could respond to the cryptic warning, Emma grabbed her wrist and shoved her hand at Aurora. Her fingers - shocked frozen by the feeling of Emma’s suddenly too-solid ones - passed right through the ethereal Aurora’s chest. “Oh, god, it’s so cold,” Regina gasped, and Emma wrapped her free arm around her shoulders, pushing her forehead against Regina’s temple.

_Call her,_ she demanded of Regina’s mind, and Regina shuddered, her fingers clenching as she understood.

Rushing in ahead of his charge, Old Man River - looking not old at all, in fact - came in with all his mental guns blazing. “What are you doing to her?” he roared, and Emma had to let go of Regina to catch him before he could interrupt... whatever Regina was doing. Emma wasn’t actually sure, because it was hard to wrestle with a surprisingly strong, protective angel and also keep in close enough contact to be able to read things Regina wasn’t deliberately broadcasting.

“Fucking... just... calm down for like five seconds and look.” Emma got her hands on his shoulders and shook, hard. The other angel finally stopped struggling and Emma pulled him along until he could see Regina and Aurora. Regina was shock still, with tears running down her face, but Aurora... blinked.

“Mom?” Henry’s voice cracked in concern and he moved through Emma to reach for her. “ _Mom_ ,” he repeated, when he saw her tears.

Regina drew in a deep, shaking breath and wiped at her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Henry. I just... I wasn’t ready to see my friend like this.”

As she stood and moved to embrace Henry, Mary Margaret’s guardian wrenched out of Emma’s grasp and threw himself on his belly on the floor, hands reaching out desperately. “Aurora, Aurora, Aurora,” he chanted, his voice higher and sweeter than Emma could remember it being. Gentle hands stroked the sleeping angel’s hair back from her face, and as Emma watched, her fist shoved into her mouth to keep herself contained, Aurora blinked again. When her eyes opened, they shifted and locked onto the ones only inches from her own. _Mulan?_

Old Man River shuddered and shed the last vestiges of his - _her_ \- former appearance in a wave of joy that made tears leap from Emma’s eyes. Blindly, she clawed out in the direction she could feel Regina and Henry, needing them to anchor her with all of the unshielded emotions flying around. What she succeeded in doing instead, however, was drawing their attention to the bed just in time for them to see the monitors leap and David’s habitually blinking eyes to close, open, and focus on Mary Margaret. His lips flickered in a half smile.

“Hey.”

Regina fainted.

* * *

 


	15. Chapter 15

* * *

 

In all the pandemonium, none of the humans noticed that Emma caught Regina before her head could hit the ground. She wrapped both her arms around Regina’s torso and hefted her upright, but her body stayed lax, her head lolling under Emma’s chin.

She wasn’t exactly sure what had just happened but Regina had blown herself wide open doing it; bits and pieces of her energy were spiking out and threatening to break off and Emma wasn’t sure how to pull her back together. Emma ruffled her wings up as big as they would go and wrapped them around her like a cocoon, at the very least hoping to contain her, and chanted her name as loudly as she could into her head, trying to remind her who she was.

Henry slid through her wings like they didn’t exist - and why would they, they were as good as his - and tugged lightly on Regina’s hand. “Mom?” he asked, frowning when he suspected she was unconscious but somehow standing. Just when Emma thought she was going to have to let Regina drop in order to solve the problem for him, Regina stirred.

“Henry,” she murmured, reaching out and pressing a hand to his shoulder, taking some of her weight off Emma. Her energy sucked back into her skin and began to stabilize. Emma almost collapsed with relief and let her wings sag.

Some hospital staff had rushed into the room to check on David, and their angels were swarming around Aurora with an overwhelming and infectious amount of joyous curiosity. Emma wondered if she was going to have to tell them to back off when Mary Margaret’s guardian stepped up, her arm held out sternly. “Give her some room,” she rumbled authoritatively, and despite the fact that now she was a couple of inches shorter than Emma, something about her stance still demanded respect.

Once they had all backed off, she turned and gently helped Aurora up off the floor. Emma bit her tongue on an offer to help, knowing she was watching something extremely personal. Aurora shook, but only had to take one step to collapse onto the bed, her hands reached automatically for David. The tension drained out of her frame as she smoothed his hair and helped him remember his name.

Mulan took deliberate steps towards Emma and Regina. She stopped just shy of the loose circle of Emma’s wings, took a deep breath, and pointedly made eye contact with Regina. “Thank you.”

Regina swallowed, hard, and opened her mouth to respond before remembering that Henry was right there and couldn’t see any of them. _You’re welcome..._ she responded uncertainly, still a little pale around the edges.

Mulan shook her head and bowed, her hand over her heart. “I don’t know what you did or why you did it, but it doesn’t matter. You saved her. I thank you, and apologize sincerely for the way I have treated you.”

Taken aback by the formal language, and probably also by the sustained contact with an unfamiliar angel, Regina rallied much faster than Emma did, and inclined her head regally. _I didn’t do it for you,_ she sniffed. _But you’re welcome._ She didn’t acknowledge the apology but Emma didn’t really expect her to, and she was rather relieved that Regina hadn’t recovered enough of her composure to be sarcastic.

“My name is Mulan,” she said gravely, her hand still pressed to her heart.

_Don’t,_ Emma cautioned when she felt Regina about to say something cutting. _She gave you her name. It’s a big deal._

Regina inhaled and nodded. “Henry, we should go,” she murmured quietly, trying not to draw attention away from David and the weeping Mary Margaret, as the doctors incredulously checked over David. Henry swallowed and agreed without any pressure from Emma, and they quietly edged out into the hall.

“I need to wash up,” Regina told Henry quietly. “Will you wait right here for me?”

Henry nodded and sat down in a waiting room chair, his hands deep in his pockets. Regina gave Emma a pointed look and she followed after a pained glance at Henry. He had a lot on his mind and she would have to play catch up later.

Regina checked all of the stalls for feet and then whirled on Emma. “What the hell was that?”

Emma backed away from the accusing finger. “I don’t know. I just thought that... I don’t know.”

“Why is Mary Margaret’s... guardian angel... suddenly an Asian woman and not an old man?”

Emma laughed, startled. “ _That’s_ what you’re freaking out about here?” Regina scowled and started to slam her shields back into place; Emma reached out and grabbed her wrist to startle her out of it. “We can look however we want,” she said softly. “It’s rare for guardians to change, but we can.” Emma concentrated and _thought_ to her body, and felt her shoulders broaden, her spine lengthen. “See?” he asked out of lips that felt alien, hearing his voice at a jarringly lower pitch.

Regina stared up at his face for so long that Emma began to get nervous. She opened her mouth, and he felt a sudden flash of fear that Regina might say she preferred this to her ‘normal’ shape. “Change back,” she said, voice low and dangerous. “Right now.”

Immediately, Emma let herself snap back into place. Their eyes at more of an equal height, Regina actually took a step forward and freed her wrist from Emma’s hand to tentatively touch her jaw. “So this isn’t real?” Her hand drifted down and Emma stood shock still as her fingers traced her collarbone, down her sides to settle on her flank.

“It’s -” Emma’s voice stuttered as Regina’s fingers flexed experimentally. “It’s the way I looked when I died.” She needed to focus and not think about her death, but it was impossible to back away from Regina. “Most guardians never choose to be different than when they were human. Habit, you know.” She smiled and tried for flippant, but Regina didn’t respond to the change in tone.

“So, Mulan -”

Emma blew out a sigh, grateful to change the subject. “My guess is that she changed because she was so upset about what happened to Aurora. Strong emotions like that, they can make us different. And when we’re different... we look different. I’m going to stop saying the word different any time now.”

Regina’s lips pursed around a snarky comment about Emma’s vocabulary. “So, about - what was her name? Aurora?”

Emma groaned and backed away, towards the door. “Please don’t make me try to explain that because I have no idea. I just kind of figured that - I mean, you’re like a magnet, and I thought that maybe if you called her, she might answer, so -” Regina scowled and Emma put up her hands defensively. “I know it’s not a good enough answer, but I’m doing my best here. Can we please go home now?”

Regina nodded and reached under Emma’s elbow for the door. Emma darted over to Henry and wrapped her arms around him, needing the anchor as much as he needed the comfort. Regina offered him her hand, but he stood and wrapped his arm around her waist instead.

_Is Emma your real name?_ Regina asked quietly.

_The one I died with,_ Emma confirmed, her arm slipping over Henry’s shoulders. Regina settled her arm right below it, and pinched gently at Emma’s jacket sleeve. Walking out of the hospital with her stride in sync with them, Emma almost forgot that no one else could see her.

 

* * *

 


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry about how long this took.

* * *

 

Henry asked for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner, and Regina seemed too glazed to protest or cook, so she let him fuss around the kitchen, dropping globs of jelly on the counter and then using the same knife to scoop the peanut butter. Emma skated around in his mind without purpose, content to skim the surface of his generally happy thoughts.

He set the first sandwich he made in front of Regina. “Wait,” he cautioned seriously, with one finger raised, and when she nodded he went to the fridge and poured her a glass of milk. “Now you can eat,” he smiled at her as he set it down. “Wouldn’t want you to choke.”

Regina glowed but only pursed her lips and lifted the first triangle of sandwich. “No, we wouldn’t want that.”

Henry settled himself at the table with his own sandwich. “Do you think Miss Blanchard will be at school tomorrow?” His tone was transparently forced and Emma almost laughed, reminded of herself.

Regina tilted her head onto her hand. “I don’t know, sweetie. It’s a big thing, what happened today.” She let her voice trail off on an upward, questioning note, waiting for him.

Henry nodded and chewed on his lip for a minute. “You knew, about Miss Blanchard’s husband?”

Regina nodded cautiously, unable to read his tone, her eyes flicking towards Emma for a clue. Emma crossed her arms and shook her head, wanting them to be able to communicate without her in their heads. “I did.”

“You were friends with him?”

Regina hummed and took a bite of her sandwich, buying herself time. “After a fashion, I suppose. We went to school together. And then when I became mayor, he was the deputy, so we worked together.”

“How come I never met him?”

Regina almost smiled, and nearly laughed, her discomfort with the conversation was so high. “This was before you were born, Henry.”

“Oh.” Henry’s brow furrowed as he tried to consider a time before himself. “What happened?”

Regina choked, an undignified sound emerging from her throat. Emma thumped her on the back helpfully, until Regina recovered enough to glare at her. “It... well, the doctors think he had an aneurysm.” Off of Henry’s confused look, she clarified, “Like a...” _Brain fart_ , Emma offered. “A bubble in his brain that popped.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

Regina smiled sadly. “The brain is a complicated thing, Henry.”

The memory of what really happened was spiking out of her skin, despite her attempts to suppress it, and Emma was resisting the urge to grab at a thread and pull, knowing that she should stay within the conversation and Henry.

He was shuffling through questions in his head, all of them pretty good ones given how little he knew, but then he looked over at his mom and closed his mouth on them. Emma followed his gaze and noticed with a kick of guilt how exhausted she looked. “Can I read in bed tonight?”

“Only thirty minutes,” Regina allowed, “And don’t think I won’t come and check on you.”

On impulse, as Henry passed to go upstairs, Emma thought herself just solid enough to kiss Regina’s temple. Before she could see how it’d gone over, she scampered upstairs behind Henry. _Cheeky_ , the thought drifted up, tightly channeled with barely a hint of emotion. Emma smirked. At this rate, Regina would be even better controlled that she was. Not that Emma was any sort of standard.

Henry read for almost an hour before falling asleep; Regina had fallen asleep on the couch and Emma didn’t bother waking her. Once Henry was dreaming, she slipped downstairs to drape a blanket over her. A benefit of being incorporeal was that Regina didn’t even twitch when she pulled off her reading glasses.

Emma was excited for school the next day and Henry was suspicious of his own emotions because of it. He at least remembered what had happened on Saturday. The further they got from the house, though, the more wary he got and the more Emma remembered that she wasn’t invincible.

“Hey, Henry!”

They both flinched, and Emma threw an arm around his chest, caging him with her wings as he turned towards the sound. They were nearly in the building, well in sight of the teachers, but the sight of the bright smile and enthusiastic waving was still disconcerting. “Hey, Greta,” he responded, and Emma lowered her wings. Greta’s guardian was only a few inches taller than she was, maybe only a year or so older, but he was sizing Emma up like a seasoned veteran.

_I heard what happened,_ he squinted.

_Did you now_ , Emma kept her thoughts mild and listened to Henry and Greta as they talked about the cartoon characters on Greta’s backpack. _Or did you hear that something happened and now you’re fishing?_

He scowled at her. _Why you gotta be a bitch about it?_

_I don’t know_ , Emma snarked. _Why couldn’t Greta be friends with Henry on Friday?_

She waited for him to look guilty, but his face only managed a kind of peevish aggravation, like he had suddenly realized he smelled bad. She’d take it, because Henry was practically gleeful over having someone to talk to, even if it was a cartoon that he wasn’t really all that into.

There was a substitute teacher; Emma wasn’t really surprised but some of the other guardians were annoyed that they couldn’t dig for any more information. She watched out of the corner of her eye as they debated whether or not to ask her. They decided not to, and everyone went right on pretending that they all couldn’t hear each other. The sub was a sleepy older woman who let them have art for an hour. Henry made himself a superhero, and then with the extra time made Regina his sidekick.

Greta lived on the way home, so Henry walked her to her front yard. Emma poked her guardian in the ear with her wing the whole time, pretending it was an accident. Then, his drawing carefully pinched between his fingers, he skipped up to the front door.

Emma grabbed him by his jacket and pushed him past the living room, blocking the entire room from his awareness and flexing as much control over him as she could to make him think Regina was still at work. She pushed him upstairs just as she felt the hooks slide into her and yank her by the wings back into the living room.

_WHERE DID YOU GO?_ Emma didn’t turn to look at Regina, putting all of her energy into trying to flee upstairs. The grip on her wings was hot and hard and she couldn’t concentrate on anything else. _WHERE DID YOU GO?_ Her voice was loud and sharp and it sent black needles of pain right through Emma’s body. And Regina’s grip wasn’t relaxing either, her energy spiking out of her body in painful, thorny fingers, trying to dig into Emma.

“Fuck.” She squeezed her eyes shut, took a deep breath, and blinked herself out of Regina’s grip and around. “ _HENRY HAD SCHOOL_ ,” she roared right into Regina’s face.

The trick was unexpected - Regina didn’t have much experience with what angels could actually do - and the forced of her shout knocked Regina back into the couch. Her face was twisted into a ferocious sneer but Emma clenched her jaw and shoved her back with both wings. “ _Regina_!”

Something flickered in her eyes in response to her name, so Emma moved closer and said it again, watching as some of the darkness receded from her face, and again, until Regina collapsed into her chest and Emma wrapped her arms around her. “I went with Henry to school,” she murmured, refusing to allow any hint of apology into her voice.

Regina shivered and seemed to pull into herself. “I know,” she said, a hint of her usual sarcasm bleeding back into her voice. “But you were gone.”

“Yeah,” Emma agreed, palming Regina’s shoulders and pushing her upright. She frowned, and gently touched Regina’s lip. “Have you always had this scar?”

Regina shooed Emma’s hand out of the way and touched the hairline scar in her skin. “What...”

Emma looked closer, with more than her eyes, looked at the way her body seemed to have cracked and fused under her skin. “Shit, Regina, what did you do today?”

“What do you mean, today? It...” Regina looked around. “It’s afternoon.”

“Yes. Henry just got home from school.”

“Hen-” Regina’s voice cracked to a halt. _Henry’s home._

Emma tried to smile reassuringly while tending to the various microfractures in Regina’s energy. “I sent him upstairs, sweetie. It’s okay. He’s fine. He made a friend today, even.”

Regina rolled her eyes. “Did you just call me sweetie?”

“How do you always manage to focus on the wrong part what I say?” Emma couldn’t stop the smile that appeared on her face any more than Regina could stop the haughty scowl that followed it. Emma sat in the moment, and refused to think about the fact that she couldn’t do a thing about the scar on Regina’s lip.

Regina ruined that, of course, by running her fingers over it. Emma watched and could see the seam in her energy underneath it. It was like Regina had broken apart and been put back together. “Do you remember anything about today?”

Regina’s eyes widened and her hand slid to cover her whole mouth. _A whole day..._

_A whole day_ , Emma confirmed, running her hands up and down Regina’s arms in a useless, comforting gesture. Tears were leaking out of Regina's eyes and Emma really wanted her to stop crying. “Hey, can we have lasagna for dinner?”

A bark of laughter shot between Regina’s fingers. Emma grinned and sat back on her heels.

* * *

 


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, Mulan is going to be kinda OOC, moving forward. I thought a lot about it and given that guardians only guard during the time period that they themselves lived -- it doesn't make sense for Angel!Mulan to retain the storybook speech patterns and lack of pop culture references that she has in the show. I wrote it and it sounded awkward so I changed it. So she's AU Mulan. (Don't worry; we'll be spending a lot of time with her so hopefully you can warm up to it.)

* * *

 

_Mulan_ , Emma called tentatively, sitting cross-legged on the foot of Henry’s bed with her hands folded up under her chin. _Mulan, I know you can hear me. Do I really have to call your name three times? Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice._ Silence. Emma sighed. _Mulan._

The energy in the room shivered and shifted as Mulan clunked into view, heavy combat boots kicking at the floorboards exaggeratedly. “What do you want, cowboy?”

Emma shifted to face Mulan as she sat down on the window seat. In jeans and a tank top, Emma could see the colorful tattoos inking up both arms, and raised her eyebrows, not expecting them any more than she had expected anything else about Old Man River's actual appearance.  "Cowboy?” she questioned.

Mulan shrugged, hunching forward with her forearms on her splayed knees. “You swagger into town on your big high horse and start layin’ down the law.”

“I’m not the sheriff,” Emma chuckled at the unintentional irony.

“Again, what do you want, cowboy?”

Emma chewed on her lip for a moment, trying to think. “I want to - I need someone else to know what’s going on here. Or what I think is going on. And you owe me one.”

Mulan snorted and sat back. “I don’t owe you.”

“You owe me for Aurora.” Emma clenched her jaw, hating herself for using it like that.

Quiet laughter startled her into looking back over. “You’re so not as hardcore as you want to be, are you?”

Emma dropped her head into her hands. “Not really.”

“So tell me.”

Emma took a deep breath, and then another. “There’s something wrong with Regina.” She held up a finger when Mulan opened her mouth to say told you so. “Not - maybe not bad. But she’s not... she’s not like any other human I’ve met. I’ve been a guardian for a few lifetimes now, so trust me when I say that this is different.”

“Explain,” Mulan demanded, her face void of expression but her arms crossing skeptically.

With both hands covering her face, Emma thought about what she’d seen. “It’s like she isn’t put together right.”

“Getting real tired of your bullshit, cowboy.”

“It’s not bullshit,” Emma snapped, shoving off the bed and pacing forward. “Look.” She shoved the memory at Mulan with both hands and watched with a kick of gratification as Mulan stared at it with wide, distant eyes.

_What the fuck._

“I know.” Emma sank back down on the corner of the bed and watched as Mulan replayed the split second of memory, over and over. “Have you ever heard of the Grigori?”

“The watchers,” Mulan nodded automatically. “Wait - you don’t think she’s one of them?”

Shit. Mulan didn’t know anything about them, either. “No, I met one last week.”

“What - are you serious? Those guys are Fallen. Capital F, Fallen. And you talked to one?”

Emma shook her head. “She wasn’t all that bad.”

Mulan gaped at her. “Are you fucking serious?”

“Do you want to see, or -” Emma brought the entire memory up and made to shove it at Mulan, who shot back with her hands up.

“No, no. I believe you, I just - _damn_ , are you that grey?”

Emma laughed and dropped down onto her back, her forehead touching Henry’s knee. “You believe in grey, so that’s something. I kinda had you pegged for a black-or-white type, like Michael.”

“Not really. I mean, Mary Margaret is actually more -” Mulan straightened her spine and made a mockingly stern face. “I don’t know. I’ve been around for a while. And this _shit_ with Aurora...”

“You’re thinking that maybe things are a little more complicated.” Emma raked a hand through her hair and felt her fingers snag on tangles. Guardians were taught such a simplistic view of their new world, and it was difficult accepting that they hadn't been fully briefed. 

“Yeah.” Everything was quiet for a minute, but Emma could feel Mulan running through the memory she’d given her again. “So what did the watcher tell you about Regina?”

Emma splayed her hands out towards the walls, laughing. “Not really a damn thing. Spent a lot of time telling me about this other watcher, like the Boogie Man of watchers, and how fucked up it was being here and just _watching_.” Unbidden, the golden gleam in Tamiel's eyes as she remade the apple tree swam up in Emma's memory.

“She sounds a little bit unstable. Was she hot at least?”

Emma manifested a pillow just to throw at Mulan's face. “Boy, when you age down you really age down, huh?”

Mulan sneered and stuck out her tongue, catching the pillow easily. “Just trying to get you out of lala land over there. You had that look on your face like when Anael comes around.” They both sighed reflexively, in unison, at the mention of Anael. It was an automatic response. Emma had yet to meet an angel that didn't melt in Anael's presence.

Emma chuckled. “Well, there were apples involved.” Mulan shot her a look, brow quirking down. “Anael always smells like apples to me. Not for you?” Emma shrugged, dismissing it as another quirk of arch-presentation, and sat up. “You want to know what I think is happening?”

“I wouldn’t have answered your call if I didn’t. I left Mary Margaret asleep in a hospital chair, you know.” She raised her hands defensively when Emma lifted an eyebrow. “Aurora can keep her asleep. And, dude, if you think you can talk MM into leaving David at this point, you’re _definitely_ delusional.”

Emma conceded the point and leaned forward, pressing her hands together. “Okay. I think this entire...” She gestured out around her vaguely. “Thing, what’s happening here is because this bad guy -” She lowered her voice as much as possible. “ _Samyaza_ , he wants Regina to be evil, so he’s gaslighting everyone into -”

Mulan blinked. “Samyaza?”

Emma nodded. “You know the name?”

Mulan opened her mouth, the affirmative on the tip of her tongue, when suddenly her eyes went blank and she shook her head, instead. “No, I’ve never heard that name. It sounds fake.”

Emma bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. _Well, fuck. I hate being right._

* * *

 


	18. Chapter 18

* * *

 

Making a human do something wasn’t as simple as brand new angels thought it was going to be. Regina notwithstanding, most humans didn’t actually hear anything their guardians said to them, and Emma’s rulebreaking notwithstanding, most guardians were assiduous about not touching the physical world. Emma had been told some things her first time on the ground, something about free will and effecting too many choices with even the simplest intervention, but she’d never been very good at listening to instructions.

The simple fact was that getting humans to do things was complicated. It was easier when they were very young, or physically weakened. They could be given ideas, or pushed into making decisions they were already contemplating when they were tired or stressed, but actually getting them to do something they wouldn’t have done previously was hard work.

Emma started working on Henry while he was still asleep, after Mulan left, slowly building layers on the idea, trying to work through logic and emotion in order to have an easier time of pushing him when he woke up and put his walls back into place.

He woke up with his alarm and immediately thought about it, but Emma celebrated prematurely, as he dismissed the idea as he brushed his teeth and was looking forward to going to school and hanging out with Greta and maybe doing more art. Emma pushed carefully at various points in his thoughts, determined not to use fear or guilt and risk giving him a long term dislike for school and other kids.

He was halfway through his oatmeal before he put his spoon down and cleared his throat. “Mom?” Emma suppressed her triumphant grin.

“Yes, Henry?” Regina put down the coffee urn and turned to face him.

“Do you think that we could go and see Mrs Blanchard’s husband today? I know it’s a school day but I really want to check on him and -”

 _Say yes_ , Emma interrupted Regina’s immediate ‘no.’ _Please_.

Regina narrowed her eyes skeptically but took a deep breath. “Why do you want to do this, Henry?”

He frowned and drew lines over the surface of his oatmeal with the tip of his spoon. “It’s... I just keep thinking about it, and how we just kind of left after he woke up, and it’s such a big thing and I don’t think Mrs Blanchard has many friends.” He blurted the last part out quickly, his eyes skittering around the kitchen with empathetic embarrassment.

Regina’s face softened minutely. “What makes you say that?”

“Well...” Emma caught the thought only seconds before he voiced it and winced preemptively. “I sort of hang out with her at the diner every day after school.”

“You’re supposed to do your homework.” Regina’s face was closed and tight with suppressed anger; Emma had to look really closely to be able to read the hurt running undercurrent.

“I know. I do that, too.” Henry’s tone was defiant and reflexively irritated, and Emma exhaled a huge wave of _everyone chill the hell out_. Both sets of shoulders relaxed, but Regina’s upper lip curled in distaste.

_Stop that._

_No_ , Emma responded tightly, arms crossed.

_You have no place in this discussion. I will discipline my son as I see fit._

Emma swallowed hard, feeling like she’d been kicked in the gut, and made herself look at Regina’s face, at the glacial expression and the stern, staring eyes. As she held eye contact, Regina’s lids flickered, pupils shifting down and away for a split second. Emma made her lips curl up into a small smile. _Let me help with this._

Regina cleared her throat. “All right. We’ll have a talk about being honest later. But yes, if you’d like to go and visit Dav - Mr Nolan - then I suppose that would be all right. Just this once.” Her eyebrows furrowed as she looked for the right way to phrase her next sentence. “It... was a big thing, for you to see. And I’d like it if... maybe we could work on talking about it? After?” Emma nodded slowly, glancing meaningfully to Henry. She would help him do that. After she helped him commit truancy. Priorities and all.

The drive to the hospital was quiet. Emma started out in the back seat next to Henry but restlessly shifted up to the front seat and eventually outside to the car’s roof, unfurling her wings and imagining that the wind could really whip through her hair.

 _Something on your mind?_ Regina asked mildly as they paid for parking and headed inside.

Emma only shook her head. There was too much on her mind, and at least half of it was stuff Regina would be cross about. Frankly, after Regina’s apparently literal breakdown yesterday, Emma was a little bit afraid of stressing her out any more than necessary.

Henry reached for Regina’s hand as they got off the elevator. “It’ll be okay,” he told her solemnly, and Emma took his words as if they were meant for her.

 _Howdy, cowboy_ , Mulan greeted, leaning against the wall halfway down the hall, arms and ankles crossed casually, as if she’d been standing there for hours, rather than waiting for them to get off the elevator.  

 _Cowboy?_ Regina responded, cocking her head to the side and meeting Mulan’s eyes.

Mulan shot out of her pose so quickly her ankles almost tangled up and tripped her. _Sir. I mean, ma’am. Good morning. Hi._

Regina swept a single, imperious glance from the top of Mulan’s long fauxhawk to the tips of her combat boots, and then continued past her with Henry in tow. Emma cuffed her on the shoulder. _Be cool, Soda Pop_ , she chuckled.

 _She can see me,_ Mulan bubbled.

 _Mhm. She can hear you, too._ Regina threw a look over her shoulder and Mulan held her breath, pulling her shoulders back and lifting her chin proudly. _Good morning._

Mulan glanced at Emma, eyes wide. _I haven’t been seen since MM was a little girl,_ she muttered tightly. _Woah_.

Emma nodded in sympathy. There was something extremely heady about been seen by a human, after being invisible for so long. It was like Tamiel had said, the pressure of just _watching_ was almost intolerable. Interacting, genuinely interacting, with Regina was enough to make a guardian giddy.

“Madame Mayor!” Mary Margaret stood nearly as quickly as Mulan had. “It’s - oh, hello, Henry!” Her politely surprised face melted into a genuine, broad smile. “Why aren’t you in school?” There was no hint of real censure in her voice, and she crouched slightly and held out her arms for a hug. Regina’s ramrod posture relaxed slightly at how plainly happy the other woman was to see Henry.

“Mayor Mills,” the deep voice from the man sitting up in the bed startled her, just enough that Emma reached out to place a calming hand on her shoulder.

“Deputy Nolan,” she responded evenly, shaking off the support and passing Henry and Mary Margaret to reach out a hand. David’s hand shook as he lifted it, but Regina’s face didn’t alter as he slowly completed the gesture. “How are you feeling?”

He smiled ruefully. “Considering I’ve been in a coma for over a decade... the doctors are saying it’s a miracle I can even hold my head up.”

“No permanent damage?” Regina asked, her voice plainly skeptical. Emma frowned, echoing the sentiment.

“Well, I probably won’t walk again -”

“Well, not anytime soon,” Mary Margaret interrupted breezily, brushing past Regina and fussing at the tucked edges of the blankets around David’s legs. Over her shoulder, David sighed and blinked once, meaningfully, at Regina before transferring his attention to his wife. “We’ll get you into physical therapy and one day you will. One miracle already happened, no sense in thinking there won’t be another one.”

“Of course not,” David agreed, and with his entire face lit up at the sight of Mary Margaret’s, there was no sense that he thought otherwise. “Now, who is this young man?”

Regina beamed and Emma pushed the suddenly shy Henry forward. “This is my son, Henry.”

“Your son!” David smiled broadly and didn’t ask any questions, gesturing Henry closer.

“He’s adopted,” Mary Margaret muttered, and Emma scowled.

 _Not necessary_ , she sniped to Mulan. At the window, Mulan had wrapped a bracing arm around Aurora’s slim shoulders and was murmuring to her, but she looked up at Emma’s words.

 _I know. I told you, MM is very... Michael about things._ She shifted her attention to Regina, who was trying, somewhat successfully, to mask her anger. _I’m sorry._

“Well, Henry, I’m sure you’re lucky to have found each other,” David said diplomatically, and Henry smiled cautiously. Mulan sighed in relief and kissed Aurora on the temple.

“Thank you, sir,” he said. “I’m glad you’re awake. I know Mrs Blanchard missed you.”

“I missed her,” he beamed at Mary Margaret, who seemed aware she had committed a serious faux pas and smiled in relief that it had been smoothed over. “Thank you for coming to see us. Would you be interested in finishing the story you started?”

Henry’s eyes widened. “You could hear me?”

“I think so,” he replied. “I recognize your voice.” He picked the book up off the table, but nearly dropped it, forgetting how weak his grip was. Henry darted forward and caught it.

 _Hello, Regina_ , Aurora ventured cautiously.

Regina stiffened against the urge to speak aloud. _Hello, Aurora._

Aurora nodded happily, the brightness of her smile eclipsing the rest of the room. Mulan grinned reflexively and wrapped her arms around Aurora’s waist, burying her chin in the place where Aurora’s red hair commingled with the white feathers of her wings. They fit together like interlocking puzzle pieces and Emma smothered her grin with her hand. _Thank you for waking me up._

 _You’re welcome?_ Regina shifted her weight, embarrassed.

 _Do you remember what happened?_ Emma blurted, impatient. Mulan tightened her grip and narrowed her eyes, but Aurora tilted her head so that their temples pressed together and hummed gently.

 _I’m sorry_ , she told Regina, and Emma, without opening her eyes. _The last thing I remember is when Daniel told me you could see him._ She took a deep breath at the stricken surge of pain that Regina accidentally let slip out. _So it’s true, then? Daniel’s gone?_

Emma reached to touch Regina but she moved out of reach and sat down in a chair, pretending to listen to Henry reading. _Yes. As far as I can tell, someone_ \- Emma was careful not to even think the name - _took him away. And Regina’s replacement guardian is shit._

Aurora flinched at her language, which was unexpected and almost made Emma laugh. _What do you mean? How can a guardian be... bad?_

Emma shrugged. _He just... he doesn’t smell good, and he won’t go near Regina._

I _won’t let him near me_ , Regina corrected stiffly. _As you said, he smells terrible._ And then, in a narrow thought that Emma suspected was to her alone, _and he tries to make me think terrible things about myself._ Emma nodded. She’d suspected as much.

 _I need a favor from you,_ Emma said, deflecting the conversation to a place that wasn’t as difficult for Regina to be. When Aurora and Mulan nodded, accepting the turn, she took a deep breath _. I_ _need help with Henry, so I can leave him while he’s at school and try to, I don’t know, do something about Gold._

 _Gold?_ Aurora questioned.

 _The one we’re talking about, smelly_ , Mulan supplied immediately, her eyes still trained on Emma. _What are you going to do? Why do you need to leave Henry to do it?_

Emma shook her head. _I don’t know. I just don’t want him anywhere near Henry. And I know that you two are -_ She waved a hand at their current position, so close she doubted a piece of paper could slide between them.

Mulan nodded her understanding. _We can take shifts with David and MM,_ she confirmed. _One of us can stay with Henry._

Aurora smiled happily. _It’ll be nice to have a little boy around again!_ she told Mulan. _I love cartoons. And baseball. David was in Little League. Is Henry in Little League?_

 _He is,_ Regina said. _But it isn’t baseball season right now._

Aurora sulked immediately, until Mulan pressed a kiss to her temple and she immediately brightened and turned for a proper kiss. She broke off suddenly to yawn in tandem with David. _Oops. Sorry. We still get pretty tired._ Regina shifted her feet as if to stand. _No, not yet! Let Henry read until David falls asleep._ She tucked her face sleepily into Mulan’s neck, and Mulan slid her hands around Aurora’s sundress-clad waist soothingly.

 _Tch. Get a room,_ Regina thought to Emma.

 _Hush. Don’t even bother pretending you’re a prude. I’ve been in your head._ The last part was a bluff but Regina’s cheeks reddened and Emma smirked.

 _Oh, no,_ Regina rallied, shooting Emma a significantly darker look complete with a raised eyebrow that did things to Emma’s stomach. _But they’re just so... sweet._

Emma snorted in amusement. _I’ll give you that one. But their charges are kind of worse, don’t you think?_ She gestured at the two on the bed, exchanging looks that could only be described as gooey while Henry read on obliviously.

 _So, that’s why -_ Regina tipped her head at Mulan and Aurora.

 _No. I mean, it probably helped things along._ Emma perched on an empty corner of the bed. _But, we’re our own - uh - people. We have our own emotions, our own relationships. She glanced again at the two couples. Usually what happens is that_ we _influence_ you _._

Regina straightened, putting a little more distance between them. _You can do that? Make me like someone I don’t like?_

Emma shook her head, leaning forward to negate Regina’s response. _I can make you listen more closely. And it’s impossible to hate someone that you’re really hearing._

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it annoys me when people miraculously fully recover from comas on television, because that doesn't actually happen. I know in actuality, after more than 10 years in a coma, it's really quite likely David would have long term brain damage and fall in and out of comas several times and maybe never recover and basically not be anything like on the show.
> 
> But this is a story about angels, so I'm allowed to monkey around with reality in any way I please, kthxbye.


	19. Chapter 19

* * *

 

Henry read _The Emperor’s New Clothes_ , and was partly through _The Ugly Duckling_ when Mary Margaret’s stomach growled and she ducked her head down into David’s shoulder, embarrassed. “Sorry, Henry,” she muttered, and he only grinned.

“That’s okay. Are you hungry?”

Mary Margaret shrugged, making no move to get up. “They’ll bring food around eventually.”

_She hasn’t left since David woke up_ , Mulan confirmed for Emma. _Not even to eat._

Emma reached for Henry to see about helping, but he was already doing it, talking her into going with him to get food. He turned to Regina for support and she gave him permission readily. The final blow to Mary Margaret’s resolve was when David drowsily suggested that he might really like a milkshake from the diner.

Mulan and Aurora exchanged a look, and it was Mulan who detangled herself and followed them down the hall. _Don’t let Gold near him_ , Emma called after her, nervous.

_I know, cowboy_ , Mulan waved a hand and pointedly extended a wing over Henry’s shoulders. _Not my first time at the rodeo._

Emma huffed, aware her anxiety had nothing to do with trusting or not trusting Mulan, and ground her teeth until Aurora touched her elbow. “Mulan always keeps her word.”

“I’m sure,” Emma replied, not certain she should mention that she knew there was some kind of manipulation happening to all the angels in town.

Aurora tipped her head, pulling her hair back into a messy chignon. “What, then?”

Emma chewed on her lip and stalled for time by watching David blink valiantly in a fight against sleep. Aurora laughed gently at his owlish expression and pushed him over the edge with the same casual aplomb of a dog owner pulling a chew toy out of reach.

Regina scowled, adjusting her skirt. “That seems so impolite.”

Aurora shrugged, still grinning. “Oh, humans never know what’s good for them.”

“You do realize you’re speaking to a human, yes?”

“And I suppose you always make good decisions.” Aurora rolled her eyes and turned her attention to fingercombing the downy feathers on the peaks of her wings. “Twelve years without proper feather care. It’s gonna take me another twelve years to stop looking like Raggedy Ann.” Emma bit her tongue on a sarcastic comment about vanity, and was glad she did when Aurora kept speaking. “So do you know who did this?”

Regina straightened. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

Aurora sat on the windowsill and gave her a pointed look. “I know Mulan. She doesn’t keep secrets. And there’s a blank place in her mind that I can’t reach. Someone put it there.”

Emma sighed and wrapped her arms around herself, against the urge to hug Aurora, and decided to test the waters. “I think it has something to do with a grigori named Samyaza.”

She waited but Aurora’s eyes stayed focused, her brow furrowing as she thought. “What’s a grigori?”

Regina straightened up in her seat again, eyebrows lifting. _I don’t believe you ever explained that to me, either_ , she thought, aware of the voices passing out in the hallway.

“It’s like...” Emma paused, stuck somewhere between lacking the vocabulary and fundamentally lacking the knowledge. “I don’t know. It’s like an archangel, maybe? It’s another kind of angel, and they have, like, more wings.”

_That was three likes in a span of as many sentences. You sound like Henry._

Emma rolled her eyes at Regina. “Well, excuse me for sharing a vocabulary with the person whose soul is connected to mine.” She took a deep breath and reminded herself that this wasn’t the argument they were having, and then when she glanced at Aurora she was looking between them like she’d just realized they were made out of puppies. “What?”

“Nothing.” Aurora held up her hands and forced her smile down. “More wings than what?”

“Than us, for sure.” Off of Regina’s look, she stretched out a wing and pointed at her back. “Guardians just have the two wings, see?”

Regina blinked. _Why would you have more than set of wings?_   _That seems so unwieldy._

“Well, we don't really use them to fly. It’s like a rank, I think. The more you have the more you... are.” Emma shrugged and folded her wing back up with the motion. “It’s not easy to count them, because they’re all mashed together usually, so I don’t really know how many Tamiel had. More or less than the archs I’ve met, but more than me for sure.”

“Tamiel?” Aurora grabbed onto the unfamiliar name.

“Another Grigori. She came to warn me about Samyaza.”

“Out of the goodness of her heart?” Aurora asked skeptically.

“More like I was screaming Gabriel’s name and she answered instead.” Emma rubbed at her forehead and tried to push past how useless she felt. “What I need to figure out now is how Gold fits in.”

“What if Gold is Samyaza?” Aurora suggested.

Emma glanced at Regina, who was shaking her head. “I’ve met them both. Samyaza is big and -” Regina struggled for words but at the same time shaped her face into a ferociously angry thing that would have been frightening if Emma couldn’t feel her emotions remain the same. “Gold is just kind of hyper. And smelly.”

“Do you think you can -” As if realizing what she was about to suggest, Aurora inhaled sharply and pressed a hand to her mouth.

“Take Gold out?” Emma shoved both hands in her pockets and hunched over, jaw clenching against even the idea of fighting another guardian. “I guess... archangels have swords for a reason, right?” She glanced over at Regina, who was staring at her with wide eyes, and thought, carefully, to only Aurora: _If it’s what I have to do to protect her._

Aurora’s face softened. _You remind me of Mulan._ “I’ll help you any way I can.”

* * *

 


	20. Chapter 20

* * *

 

Mary Margaret and Henry returned with a milkshake and a burger in a paper bag, and when Mary Margaret saw that David had fallen asleep her sulking dismay made Regina squirm in embarrassment. “Henry, we should get you to school.”

Henry started to make a face but Mary Margaret nodded her agreement. “You really should be in school. You don’t want to get behind.”

“I won’t,” Henry sulked. “The sub isn’t any good.”

Flattered, Mary Margaret ruffled his hair and tried to be diplomatic. “You still should try your best. I bet you can learn something from her.”

“Henry,” Regina repeated from the door. With a push from Mary Margaret, he followed.

Mulan bumped her shoulder into Emma’s, sticking with them. _Henry’s nifty,_ she said, mostly for something to say. Emma hummed her agreement and pushed her hands in her pockets, too distracted by her half-baked plan to preen properly at the compliment.

Regina dropped Henry off at school just in time for lunch, and as she hadn’t packed him one she doled out five dollars. Emma grinned broadly as his shocked joy at the unexpected treat vibrated down to her, and brushed a phantom kiss onto his forehead.

Mulan held back as he scampered down the hall, grabbing Emma’s arm. “I don’t exactly approve of your plan,” she said sternly. “I want you to know that.” She held Emma’s gaze for a second, making sure her point was made. “But I won’t let anything happen to Henry.”

Emma nodded and smiled thinly. “That’s all I’m asking.”

Once Henry had disappeared into his classroom and Regina had gone back to her car, Emma settled into the passenger seat and touched Regina’s arm. “It won’t be long,” she warned quietly. “Not now that I’m thinking about it.”

Regina’s eyes widened with fear, but she questioned Emma anyways. “What does that mean, now that you’re thinking about it?”

Emma tipped her head back onto the headrest, watching Regina’s hands on the steering wheel. “So much of what we do is about intention. Like, I want Henry to go to sleep, so he gets sleepy.” She noticed that Regina had that look on her face again. “Hey, it’s not like we’re very strong. It takes a lot of willpower to change things. Guardians are basically just wishing for stuff.”

Regina tapped her fingers, brow furrowed in thought. Emma wanted to reach out to her, but stilled herself against the urge. Regina was doing well, and Emma knew herself well enough to know that her gut instincts were probably going to ruin things if she followed them.

“Are there other angels with more willpower?” Regina asked after a long moment.

“Well, yeah, I mean -” Emma stopped short, realizing Regina’s follow-up question. “Yes. Samyaza is probably a lot more powerful than me, if he’s anything like Tamiel.” Regina was quiet. Emma was very glad she wasn’t going to make her admit, out loud, that she basically had no chance against Samyaza, whenever he decided to make his appearance.

Storybrooke was a small town and the rest of the uncomfortably silent ride was short enough that Emma was able to resist the urge to fidget or chatter nervously. As Regina threw the car into park she turned bodily to smile at her. “Have you always been so much like my son?”

The amount of affection in her voice - even if she knew it was simply a reflection of Regina’s feelings for Henry - made Emma light up all the way to her wing tips. Regina’s smile only deepened, her eyes crinkling up in a way that did nothing to halt the circus act happening in Emma’s stomach.

Feeling herself sway forward, Emma held her breath and pulled back instead, smiling apologetically to take the sting out of the move. “This is just who I am. They said when they sent me here that they thought I might understand Henry pretty well.”

Regina’s hand hovered over the gearshift, halfway to touching Emma’s arm, before she echoed Emma’s smile and opened the car door instead. Emma sighed and trailed behind her up the sidewalk to the quaint little city hall, until Regina suddenly stumbled.

Reacting quickly, Emma grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed against the persistent tugging Regina was feeling. She shut her eyes and looked until she could see the black thread, thrumming like a guitar string, and without thinking about it she wrapped a hand around it and twisted her wrist, trying to pull some slack into the line for Regina. “Do you know where he is?” she forced out, the string pulling against her grip and sawing into her palm.

Regina, a hand pressed into her sternum and another to her forehead, shook and didn’t answer, but her body swiveled in the direction of the old pawn shop and Emma, squinting, could see the cord yanking taut in that direction. “Okay. I’m going to let go. Okay?” Regina nodded and visibly braced herself, but when Emma released the connection she stumbled forward several steps before she managed to slow to a reasonable but inexorable walk. Her hand flailed back and Emma grabbed for it, an identical expression of fear on her face. She spread her wings and dug her heels in and managed to slow them down enough that about halfway across the square she managed to stop panicking and start thinking.

_Regina, reach for me,_ she pushed into Regina’s mind, and Regina reacted immediately with both her arms and her mind, digging her toe into the ground for one herculean lurch backwards and throwing her arms around Emma’s neck. Emma wrapped her arms around Regina’s waist in a tight bearhug and beat backwards with her wings, feeling them drag and then catch hold of the air. Skipping off the ground like a kite in the first stages of flying, she managed to pull the string with her until the unfortunately familiar little figure in a dingy gold coat came ripping through the front window of the pawn shop.

Emma pushed as much focus as she could into her wings and built enough momentum to throw Regina a few feet further away. Gold had one hand wrapped up with several lengths of his own energy binding, pulling at it like he had a fish on the line. “Just give her to me,” he sang unhappily, his voice high and thready with a combination of effort and malice. “Everything will be better, everything will be _easier_ , if you just let me have her.”

Emma didn’t dignify that with a response, too busy trying to move forward and look directly at his left hand. He was holding something in it and every time her eyes got close they shifted away.

“I mean, _look_.” He gave a sudden, sharp tug and Regina yelped, sliding helplessly several feet closer to him. “Look... at... how... weak.” Every word came with an accompanying tug, and Regina was crying, the sound ringing in Emma’s ears and mind and making her frenetic.

Less than ten feet away, his concentration slipped just enough for Emma to see the shape of the dagger in his hand. _Hell, no_ , she immediately snapped, and suddenly like a flash of lightning she thought of the time she’d been hiding in an alcove in the City and seen Michael come storming through the gates, his eyes blazing and his leonine hair whipping angrily behind him. He’d held a sword in his hand, silver shining through red tongues of living flame, and before Emma could even complete the thought, she felt the weight of it in her hand.

The sword lept; Emma tightened her grip and followed through with the swing. The blade sliced through the cord that connected Gold to Regina with a flash of white-hot fire, and Gold screeched in pain, flailing backwards with jerky, uncoordinated movements.

The sword wanted to move forward, to hack through the air to him and then through him, but with the poisonous connection gone Regina’s energy snapped into Emma’s with the force of a blow and Regina crashed bodily into Emma’s side. She wrapped her free arm and the adjoining wing around the shaking woman, and held steady, feeling the heat from the sword against her cheeks.

Soon, she realized that the final blow was unnecessary; Gold was writhing and clawing at his own body, apparently heedless of the knife still clenched in his hand. As his energy diminished the pressure in the air around them eased, and Emma became aware of the repetitive barking. The wolf was standing as close as he dared, feet planted and hackles raised, snapping and snarling in Gold’s direction.

Grateful for the back-up, Emma’s shoulders sagged slightly and the sword, with a jolt of energy almost like a goodbye, slid out of her hand and away. Gold continued to twist and turn under the wolf’s auditory assault, his energy body bleeding out in shallow cuts. _“IDIOTS!”_ he bellowed, loudly enough that Emma wouldn’t have been surprised if nearby humans heard him. Certainly every angel in town could. _“WHO CARES ABOUT ONE STUPID HUMAN?”_

“Hey, cowboy!” With a surprisingly loud crack, Mulan blinked onto the street in front of the diner, already sprinting forward, armor and a plain steel sword flowing effortlessly onto her body. “ _Tag_.”

Emma wrapped both arms and both wings around Regina and watched as Mulan closed the distance and wasted no time separating Gold’s knife wielding hand from the rest of him. Face twisting with resignation, she reeled back and aimed the next blow at his neck. Emma flinched and hid her face in Regina’s neck.

There was a bright flash, and then everything was still. At the sound of metal clattering to the ground, Emma looked up to see that Mulan had thrown her sword onto the empty pavement. Her armor melted off of her as she gestured out with her hands. “ _We_ care about the stupid humans. It’s our motherfucking _job_.”

“Too right,” Emma agreed, nodding solemnly to both Mulan and the wolf in a way she hoped communicated how grateful she was for the back-up.

Mulan jerked her chin up proudly and manifested a cowboy hat to tip. “Got your back, sherriff.”

Emma turned her attention to Regina, sliding her fingers underneath her jaw and pushing her head up. “Hey. You okay?”

Regina met her eyes, lips trembling as she nodded slowly. Her arms tightened consciously around Emma’s neck as her gaze flickered down to Emma’s lips, and that was all the warning Emma had before she stood up on her tiptoes, and kissed her.

The kiss sent shockwaves up and down her spine and her feathers ruffled all the way to their tips with a sound like bells chiming. Emma held herself steady just long enough to blink them both to the first place in the house she could focus on, and then she pushed Regina against the counter, and sank into her mouth with a sigh of relief.

* * *

 


	21. Chapter 21

* * *

 

“Wait, wait, wait,” Regina gasped, pushing at Emma’s collarbones and putting just enough space between their lips to cock her head, listening. “Do you hear that?” Emma shook her head and hummed a negative, hooking her hands in Regina’s bent knees and pulling herself tighter between them as she ghosted her lips across Regina’s jawline to her ear. Regina shivered and briefly locked her ankles together at the small of Emma’s back before she gathered herself again and pulled away. “I think I hear -”

 _Rein it in, cowboy_. Mulan’s mental voice vibrated with laughter. _School’s out._

“Shit,” Emma swore, stumbling backwards and helping Regina hop down off the counter, pulling her blouse straight while Regina worked her skirt back down to her knees. Their fingers vied for dominance as they both frantically tried to smooth her hair into place.

 _Get, get,_ Regina pushed and stood fully on her own, breaking into a smile just as Henry came into the kitchen. “Hi, sweetie. You’re home early.”

“Yeah.” Henry tossed his backpack on a chair and reached into the bowl on the table for an apple. “They let everyone go home because of the earthquake.”

“The earthquake?” Regina questioned, a hand flying to her chest in exaggerated surprise so that she could furtively redo a button.

“Yeah, you didn’t feel it?”

“No, I... must have been driving.” Regina fidgeted with her earring and then her hair, her energy cycling around in her ribcage at a speed that must have made thinking extremely difficult.

 _You decent?_ Mulan queried from the foyer.

Emma smirked. _What do you care?_

Mulan strode in with her hands shoved into her pockets. She looked almost completely relaxed and amused, if not for the slightly tenuous hold her expression had on her face and the way her elbows were tucked tight into her ribcage. _So I guess we caused an earthquake._

 _Oops_ , Emma agreed, forcing her voice to continue to sound amused.

Mulan’s jaw clenched as her lips thinned against speaking. She watched Regina and Henry as they argued back and forth good-naturedly over what to have for dinner. Emma felt calm enough to check on Regina’s energy again, and she gently pulled a little bit of the excess down their connection, trying to help her cool off and interact with Henry like a normal person. She tried to hide the gasp and convulsive shudder that ran through her as her own body tried to process the extra jolt, like fireworks going off behind her eyelids.

When she opened her eyes again, Mulan was standing between her and Regina and Henry, her wings casually spread to shield them. “You good?”

Emma took a deep breath and nodded, flexing her hands and shifting her weight, checking her boundaries. “Yeah.”

Regina checked on her quickly, into her thoughts and out of them before Emma was able to respond. Emma held onto the back of her neck with both hands. “You should get back,” she told Mulan, pleased with how calm her voice sounded. “Aurora will be worried.”

Mulan smiled reflexively. “She does that. Even though she knows that I -” She faltered and didn’t complete the sentence, but Emma flashed back to the sight of Mulan in her armor, of her lack of hesitation with a sword in her hand.

“You going to be okay?” Emma thought to ask, finally, with a feeling like a kick in her gut for not asking sooner. Mulan had done something few if any guardians had ever done, and she hadn’t had much time to think about it beforehand.

Mulan shrugged and turned to go. “I mostly feel bad that I didn’t believe you earlier.”

Emma followed Mulan towards the foyer. “Seriously, are -”

“Don’t fuss, cowboy.” Mulan’s eyes suddenly seemed much more weathered than Emma had been prepared to deal with, so she nodded slowly.

“Not your first time at the rodeo.”

“Call,” Mulan tapped her temple to show what she meant, “if you need anything. You know where I’ll be.” She started to blink out, but stuck just enough of herself back in the room to say, “Try to keep it down tonight. You’ve got neighbors.”

Emma scowled mockingly, and hoped the expression covered up her blush long enough for Mulan to fully disappear. Then she took another few deep breaths, standing there with her hands shoved deep in her pockets, and she might have stayed there for a while if Henry hadn’t passed through her heading upstairs with his backpack.

 _He’s going to do his homework,_ Regina said. _You are, too. I have to get dinner made._ Her mental voice was strict and impersonal, and Emma clenched her hands into fists and was halfway up the stairs when a wave of heat swamped up her spine and suddenly Regina’s voice came back. _Later_.

Emma was absolutely no help with any of Henry’s math homework. Instead she sat on the corner of the bed and tried to panic as quietly as possible. She wasn’t sure if what she was doing, and especially what Regina had implied they were going to do, was actually... allowed. Or advisable. Or honestly if she remembered the mechanics of human sex all that well because it had been a seriously long time and what if she was terrible and -

_Stop that and bring Henry down for dinner._

Emma glanced over at Henry and he was scowling down at his homework like it was actively insulting him. She winced; he’d probably been sitting there feeling her anxiety the whole time. “Sorry, kid.” She stood up and gestured. “Let’s go eat dinner.”

When he didn’t respond, she blinked and it took her a minute to realize that she’d forgotten he couldn’t see or hear her. The disappointment she felt then was unexpected and painful, and she must not have shielded herself very well because Regina immediately came upstairs.

“Henry, time to set the table.” He willingly abandoned his homework and went downstairs. Regina crossed her arms and looked at Emma until Emma squirmed in discomfort. _What is it?_

Emma looked away, feeling embarrassed for letting something so obvious bother her. _I just... I don’t know. I wanted Henry to see me._

Regina sighed and crossed the room to cup Emma’s face with both hands. _I wish he could, too._ She thought about kissing her; Emma could tell because suddenly her entire body was trying to leap forward to be kissed. Instead she took two measured steps back and crossed her arms protectively around herself.

 _What are we doing?_ Emma tried to keep from sounding sullen at the increase in distance, and failed.

Regina pursed her lips and shook her head slowly. _Falling in love, I think_. The thought cracked and bled in the middle, Regina’s eyebrows knitting sadly.

Emma took the biggest breath she could, trying to stall herself from saying what she knew she needed to say. “Look, I can - I can step back and you can - you should find someone who is, you know, _human_ and -”

Regina grabbed her by her lapels and yanked her into a bruising kiss that made Emma completely forget how she’d planned on ending that sentence. “I want you,” she murmured against her lips before sinking her teeth lightly into the lower one, kissing away the flash of pain so thoroughly that Emma reeled and grabbed for Regina’s hips, pulling them flush together in a bid to remain upright as Regina traveled up her jaw to her ear. “I haven’t wanted anyone or anything for a very long time. But I want you, and I want this. So just for now...” She kissed Emma again, briefly, and then pushed back, smiling. “We’re not going to overthink this, and we’re going downstairs and Henry and I are going to have meatloaf and green peas, and then I’m probably going to read to him for a little while even though he’s too old for that. And you’ll be there.”

“I’ll always be there,” Emma replied automatically.

Regina smiled with her eyes, her lips quirking against the full expression. “That’s more than a lot of humans could say. Okay?”

Emma nodded. “Henry’s finished setting the table.”

Regina reached out and twined her fingers with Emma’s, and led her by the hand to the dining room. Henry was already sitting in his chair, an open comic book on his plate. Regina ruffled his hair as she passed him. “What are you reading, Henry?

“Superman, Earth One. Volume two.” He lifted the spine so that Regina could see the cover.

“Tyrell was destroyed in Volume One, right?”

Henry nodded, eyes widening. “You read it?”

“I... You left it in the living room one day and...” Regina covered up her brief embarrassment by spooning more peas onto Henry’s plate and pretending not to notice his displeased expression. “I have to say I found it interesting compared earlier Superman. He’s not so...”

“Shiny?”

“Mm. More realistic, I think. What is this one about?”

Henry shoved meatloaf into his mouth and hurriedly chewed. “See, there’s this villain called Parasite, and...” Emma leaned against the kitchen doorframe and couldn’t stop smiling as Regina patiently listened to a retelling of a plot she’d read before giving the book to Henry.

Two hours later, Emma fidgeted in and out of the door of Regina’s room.

She’d retreated to the hall several minutes ago, her fluttering nerves doing nothing to help Henry fall asleep, and now she was trying to decide exactly where would be the best place to wait for Regina to finish the chapter of Half Blood Prince as she’d promised.

 _You’re adorable_ , Regina noted. _Quit it, though._

She gently shut the door to Henry’s room and held out her hand as she walked closer. Emma took it with a sigh of relief. _Hi._

Regina smirked and touched the tip of her nose against Emma’s. _If you were a human, I’d offer you a drink to calm your nerves._

 _If I was a human, I’d take it_ , Emma replied, but as she tipped her chin forward to be kissed she felt all of her nerves dissipate. Grinning into the kiss, she linked her fingers together at the small of Regina’s back and _pulled_.

Regina squeaked at the feeling of sliding through the solid door, and lifted her hands to examine them critically, counting fingers. Emma grinned, pleased by her discomfiture. “Some warning next time, please,” she chastised mildly, then tugged at Emma’s jacket. “Now, how do you take this off with those?” She pushed at Emma’s shoulder to examine where her wings emerged from her back, and Emma obligingly stretched them out so she could see.

“The clothes are just kind of... manifestations.” Emma thought the jacket off, and Regina’s hand was left clutching air. “See?”

“It’s like the Emperor’s New Clothes,” Regina chuckled, eyeing Emma’s exposed arms with interest before dragging her fingertips lightly up from her wrists, following the lines of her deltoids to her clavicle. Emma swallowed against her thumbs and held still. “Boots now.” The boots were gone before Regina finished speaking, and Regina’s smile widened as she realized they were now exactly the same height, slipping her fingers into Emma’s belt loops and tipping up onto her toes, rooting Emma in place. _Shirt_ , she commanded mentally, as she claimed her mouth again.

“Time for you to catch up.” Emma tried to assert herself even as her shirt disappeared almost without conscious thought, but Regina only chuckled and pulled obligingly at her clothes, shimmying down to her underwear without hesitation. Emma gaped and blinked, trying to will her body back into motion as Regina reached behind her back to unclasp her bra.

“Who’s behind now?” she teased, clearly amused and gratified by Emma’s dumbfounded expression. Her voice kickstarted Emma’s brain and she reached, curling her fingers around Regina’s hips and waltzing her backwards until her knees hit the bed.

Regina flowed up towards the headboard and Emma followed as if magnetized, shedding her jeans just in time for her leg to slide smoothly up the inside of Regina’s thigh. Energy spiked all the way to the top of her head at the touch, white hot and sharp, and Emma balked at the intensity, forcing herself to hover just shy of full body contact.

“Don’t be afraid,” Regina murmured at her hesitancy, cupping Emma’s jaw in her palm and tipping her chin up so that her breath ghosted across Emma’s lips. “I’m not going to break.”

She was, though, as Emma’s hands drew across her ribcage and slid underneath her arching back to span her shoulders and shift her upright, her body was shuddering and breaking apart, everywhere they touched glowing behind Emma’s eyelids like something destined to flame out. Heedless of her own light, Regina wrapped her legs around Emma’s waist and pressed into her stomach, and Emma could do nothing but fist her hand into Regina’s hair and pull her in further. They kissed again, with a sloppy urgency that bordered on desperate, and it ratcheted up her spine and made Regina squirm and press desperately closer.

“Ah,” Regina gasped as soon as Emma remembered to let her breathe, throwing her head back and twisting towards Emma’s mouth as she trailed it down the side of her neck, teeth running the length of a stark tendon to find and bite the hollow above her collarbone. Emma’s hands slid down and cupped the peaks of her shoulder blades, fingers flexing against the energy collecting there. Regina gasped again, and not completely from pleasure, shoving back against Emma’s hands and clenching her fingers around Emma’s shoulders. Struggling to focus against the light and the heat, Emma met Regina’s eyes and watched her attempt to break the surface of her own arousal and speak.

The amount of skin to skin contact was too overwhelming and Emma couldn’t even begin to stem the tide of energy. She slid a hand down to anchor Regina’s restlessly rocking hips and pushed her back down into the sheets, biting back a groan as they pressed together, legs tangling easily. Regina gasped and shuddered, hands clawing down to pull Emma’s thigh tighter against her, trying to establish a rhythm while twitching as if crawling out of her skin. Emma kissed her and breathed Regina’s name, over and over through every pore of her skin, the remarkable being beneath her responding and echoing and amplifying and Emma's mouth dropped open in a silent scream as it finally overloaded her capacity.

The room itself seemed to ripple out as Regina’s spine pulled taut and massive waves of energy blew out from her back, shaping and unfurling in the same motion to match with Emma’s wings. Everything held absolutely still, both of them hanging in a timeless place created by the cocoon of two sets of wings, staring at each other with wide-blown pupils. Her face still and utterly fearless, Regina licked her lips, took a breath, and imploded.

Emma collapsed into her with broken moan.

* * *

 


	22. Chapter 22

* * *

 

Emma had died once. She didn’t think about it very often, it had been so long ago, but waking up after dying was a singular feeling of suspension, like falling and flying at the same time, and as Emma struggled up towards consciousness she was hit with a wave of dread as she recognized that feeling again. _Oh, no._

She forced her eyes opened and squinted until Regina’s face came into focus, a few inches from her own and half obscured by a limp wing. She sighed in relief: unconscious or no, Regina was there, which was more than she’d expected.

Emma tried to move closer and failed her first attempt. She knew this feeling. They were outside of Earth-time. She gritted her teeth and pushed her forehead down into the surface beneath her, taking stock of her body and feeling it adjust to the change until she could move.

She finally managed to rise up onto her hands and knees and immediately put all of her effort into reaching for Regina. The second she touched her hand, the skin warped and energy shoved at the weak spot until it broke through. Horrified, Emma tried to shove Regina’s skin shut again, only to reel backwards as the cracks raced up her arms and through her torso.

“ _Fuckfuckfuck_ ,” Emma blurted, hovering just shy of actual contact. Regina’s body was tearing itself apart and Emma had no idea how to make it stop. “Regina. Regina, wake up. You have to wake up. You have to – ” A hairline crack raced across Regina’s cheekbone and right through her eye, widening and widening like a chasm, the features of her face rippling away. “Oh, god.”

A rippling laugh filled the air around her. “In over your head, little slave?”

Emma whirled defensively, spreading her wings and willing her clothes back onto her body, staring around the featureless plane. “Who said that?”

The air got heavier and collected itself into a tall figure that seemed to absorb all the light around it, starting at the tips of black, spiked boots and racing up armor clad legs and a broad, black-scaled chest. Emma looked away before his eyes could solidify and lock with hers.  Boots tapped into her vision and pushed at the peak of one of Regina’s wings with one toe. “The little worm finally succeeded,” the hypnotic voice observed. “I was beginning to think I was going to have to come and break her myself.”

“What – ” Emma started to say, but gauntleted hands dipped down and grabbed Regina by the wings, yanking her up into the air where she hung, suspended by apparently nothing. The figure strode between them, his back to Emma. His wings were sooty black, unkempt and half metal. Emma coiled her wings and back like a spring, and prepared to make a charge at him.

A clawed hand closed around her throat from behind. “Tch,” a woman’s voice purred in her ear. “Don’t be rude, now, dear.” The hand left her throat to give her a firm shove. Emma yelped in pain as she fell and skidded along the floor, now several feet away from Regina and feeling every one of them. She glared in the direction of her attacker and the woman glared back, wingless but scaled along her neck and temples like her companion. Emma tried to stand up and lunge for her, but a single gesture from the man rooted her feet to the floor, lines of tarry black energy wrapping and climbing like vines to ensnare her. Emma tried to push back but even her energy was held fast.

“Let her go,” she shouted.

He tossed his head and laughed. Unable to look away, Emma gaped at the darkly angled lines of his face, sculpted and painfully beautiful. “Let her go? She’ll rip herself in two without me.” He gestured, and Regina’s skin came together, her energy sealing, her eyelashes fluttering. “You see? I alone can keep her together. She’s _mine_.”

Emma pulled against her bonds uselessly, not wanting the first thing Regina saw when she regained consciousness to be _him_. The woman moved forward, wrapping around his shoulders like an expensive cape. “Wake up, darling.”

Regina stirred. “Mother?” Her hands flexed and her wings shifted; whatever energy had been holding her in place was released and her bare feet landed unsteadily on the smooth ground.

“Put some clothes on her, my love,” the woman – Regina’s mother? – requested demurely, and with a slow and eerily familiar smirk, the dark angel nodded. Black, thorny clothes wrapped around her, tucking and pulling and emphasizing until Regina was a regal, feminine version of him.

She touched her corseted stomach and then the circlet around her temples, and looked up with an expression of bewildered horror. “ _Samyaza,_ ” she breathed. Emma sighed, unhappy to have her suspicions confirmed.

“Don’t be uncouth, Regina. You will refer to your father as such.”

“My -” Regina’s throat closed up around the word and her mother smirked, watching the expressions flit across her face as she processed the news. “So I am a monster,” she said finally, voice low and defeated.

_No_ , Emma shouted with every ounce of willpower she had, but a feeling like a fist clenching on her mind cut her thought off before it could project. The pain of it was physical and Emma felt tears begin to leak from her eyes, dismayed and terrified by how genuinely overpowered she was. Regina didn't even glance in her direction, was totally unaware of her presence.

“Come to me, child,” Samyaza beckoned, his energy rippling through the air with a seductive force of will that made even Emma want to shift closer. “You are my blood. Claim your power.”

Her mother smiled with a loving display of emotion that looked nearly genuine. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted for you, Regina. This is what you were made for. Come to us.”

Samyaza’s energy was wrapped around Regina’s heart and running through her veins, visible even to Emma’s normal sight, and he was pulling at it, smiling and holding out his hand.

Regina took a step forward without hesitation.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was meant to be much longer; I've had to cut it in half because I didn't want to leave you guys totally hanging any longer, but a thunderstorm knocked out my power for most of the evening. Very sorry.


	23. Chapter 23

* * *

 

A light flashed, a sound like a bulb popping, and suddenly Emma took in a huge, gasping breath at the sudden feeling of being more than one being. _Sorry, but this was the quickest way,_ a familiar voice said in her head, politely, forcing out of her and into the plane, bare feet landing softly with nothing more than a swish of robes.

“One moment, brother,” Tamiel interrupted casually, and when her voice failed to break the trio’s concentration, she planted her feet and cranked both sets of wings to their full extension. The sound was almost unbearably loud.

Samyaza scowled, the angles of his face darkening and lengthening like a vengeful bird. “ _Kasyade_ ,” he growled, shaking off Regina’s mother and pulling armor onto his chest. Regina gasped in sudden pain as some of the dark stitches in her body began to fade into opaque.

“I don’t use that name anymore,” Tamiel said calmly, glancing at Regina and frowning in concentration until Regina stood upright again, fingers running along the healing seams.

Samyaza drew a sword from the air and pointed it to Tamiel’s breastbone. “You have no right. She is my creation.”

Tamiel’s lips quirked and she pushed the flat of the blade aside with two fingers. “Unfortunately for you, she’s half human. Which means that unlike us, she has free will. You can’t simply take her. She has to _choose_.”

He grinned. “She made her choice.”

“Did she?” Tamiel tipped her head. “Or have you once again assumed things are far less complicated than they actually are?”

“You may not come to my place and insult me!” Samyaza bellowed, swinging his sword with both hands at Tamiel who simply... wasn’t there. Samyaza overbalanced and struck the ground, and straightened with a huff like a bull about to charge. “ _You_!” he shouted when he couldn’t see anyone else, charging towards Emma, who begged her legs to move.

His sword was ice cold as it slid around her back and pressed against the base of her wings. “Tell me what happened or I cut them off.”

“I don’t know!” Emma blurted, desperately fighting the urge to squirm away from the press of his body and risk cutting herself. “We were just - I just - and then she just - ” He sneered and silently imitated her stuttering, tightening the edge of the blade until she could feel it beginning to slice into her wings. Emma sobbed. “Please don’t take her. I love her.”

“ _Emma_ ,” Regina said, eyes wide and seeing for the first time, in the same second as Tamiel’s voice drifted into her mind, whispering _thatta girl._

Samyaza growled in frustration and shoved away, pacing back with his free hand clenched into a fist. “Cora!” he shouted in an echoing voice that Emma recognized as a summons. “The hell did you go?! Useless human.”

“I’d be careful with how you insult me,” Regina’s mother purred as she slid back into view. Emma’s stomach dropped. Held upright by both shoulders, clawed fingers cutting into his pajamas, Henry looked absolutely terrified. “After all, I brought you a present.”

Samyaza grinned and reached for Henry’s face with both hands. “Hello, little human. Have you ever seen anything like me?”

Henry gulped and shook his head, catching sight of Regina over his shoulder. “Mom?”

Regina, visibly fighting to maintain control, clenched both her hands into fists. “Are you okay, Henry? Are you hurt?”

“Of course he isn’t hurt,” Cora stroked the back of her hand down his cheek. “I would never harm my own grandson.”

Henry tilted his head back to look at her. “You’re my grandma?”

She smiled at him, her eyes crinkling. “Hello, lovey. You can call me Cora.”

Samyaza grabbed at Henry’s chin and yanked it from side to side. “He’s just a human. Why would I want him?”

Cora hugged him to her. “No. But you want her.” Samyaza’s eyes widened along with his smirk, and he released Henry to pet Cora’s scales lovingly. Emma felt the grip on her mind ease just slightly as he was distracted, and she pushed towards Henry with all that she had, trying to get enough energy down their connection to pull him away. She almost had him when Samyaza reached out and clenched his fingers in the air. Emma gasped in pain as the energy broke off and exploded into the air uselessly.

Drained, she let herself sag in her restraints. _Any time now, Tamiel,_ she muttered.

‘ _Watcher_ ,’ Tamiel replied in mild rebuke, the thought shallow and distracted-feeling.

Emma, angry, tried to push her frustration back, but it only made her feel weaker. _Damn it._

_Tag._

With the same popping sound Tamiel had made, Mulan came leaping over Emma’s shoulder and jumped at Cora without hesitation, successfully tearing her away from Henry and shoving her backwards. Rather than pursue, she grabbed at the front of Henry’s pajamas and dragged him away. Cora hissed, the imprint of Mulan’s palm burned into her collarbone.

Mulan nearly had Henry behind Emma when Samyaza got his hands around her wings. She shoved Henry away from her and Aurora caught him with both arms, wrapping around him. Mulan let out a hideous screech as she was ripped back and flung through the air until she stuck like a fly caught in a spiderweb. “Aurora, get him out!”

Aurora was covering Henry protectively with her wings, his face buried in her shoulder, but her eyes were wide with fear. “I can’t! I can’t move him out of this plane!”

Samyaza laughed melodically. “Slaves. So weak. Can’t even manage a stiff breeze down there. Look at me, my child.” He swept his arms around in a circle, his aura of power swirling around him like a cloak. “I am limitless in comparison. Your mother was dead, yet here she stands. Wouldn’t you like to live forever? You and this... human you call your son?”

“That’s not how life works!” Aurora blurted, color rising in her cheeks as she blocked Henry’s ears with her palms. “Humans aren’t made to live forever.”

“Oh, do be quiet. I think it’s about time you went back to sleep.”

_NO!_ Mulan’s wings twisted, shedding feathers as she desperately tried to free herself.

Aurora blinked, and slumped to the ground, leaving Henry unprotected with her lax wings framing his knees. He tried to look brave, but he was breathing so rapidly he was shaking, and as Samyaza’s boots tapped closer he shook at Aurora’s limp shoulder. “Help me. Please help me.”

“Mother, please,” Regina pleaded, her hands twisting. “Please let him go. Let Emma take him home.”

Cora tilted her head and smiled. “Darling. Of course she can. Just as soon as you make your choice.” She held out her hand, her eyes narrowing sharply. “Come to us and you can have everything you want. Even your little slave.”

Regina’s veins darkened, her feet wavering. Emma held her breath and felt tears running down her cheeks. _She’s lying. I love you, but she’s lying._ She knew her thoughts were too muffled to reach Regina, but Emma didn’t have a choice. If Regina chose her father, then she would be lost to them all.

“She’s lying, Mom! My guardian angel says she’s lying!”

_Oh, Henry_ , Emma wept, feeling him pull at their connection solidly. _Henry_.

He tightened his jaw and stood straight despite Samyaza towering over him. “I’m not afraid of you.”

Samyaza suddenly loomed taller, doubling in size and wingspan as the shadows around Henry darkened menacingly. “No? You should be.” He lifted a hand.

“ _No_.” The pressure on Emma’s body eased; Mulan dropped to the floor. Regina, her chin tipped up in sudden, sure defiance. “I get to choose.”

Samyaza whirled so quickly that the air shifted and lighting flashed. “You’re mine.”

“She’s her own,” Tamiel’s voice came from Aurora’s lips, as the watcher shone through Aurora’s skin and picked her up with her own body. Gentler than she had with Emma, Tamiel stepped out and shook herself off. “Free will, you understand.” She tipped her head, mockingly sympathetic. “No, I suppose you don’t, or you wouldn’t still be creating Nephilim.”

“Without my will, she won’t exist.” Samyaza seemed to be shrinking, until he was of a height with Tamiel, who simply stood, wings relaxed and hands open. “That’s her only choice.”

Tamiel sighed and brought a hand up, gazing at her palm. “Don’t make me do this,” she whispered, and it didn’t seem to Emma that she was talking to Samyaza. “Not again.”

Samyaza sneered and stepped back, armor sliding up to cover his chest and face, his sword falling into his hand. “I’ll just kill you, and then take her anyways. Save us both the aggravation this time.”

Tamiel curled her fingers and a spear formed within them, lengthening and solidifying just in time to catch the blow aimed solidly at her head. At the impact, a cracking sound reverberated across the whole plane, and Emma was free. Immediately, she sprinted to Henry and wrapped her arms around him, holding fast and feeling his fingers dig into her arms, and only once she knew she had him did she dare to look for Regina.

Squinting through the blur of motion that was two Grigori fighting, she could see Regina standing toe-to-toe with her mother, and winced. Cora had a handful of Regina’s hair in her fist and Regina looked pale and weak, energy bleeding out of her nose and ears.

_I got this bitch,_ Mulan said, surging up from the ground to lock her arms up underneath Cora’s shoulders, dragging her away and shoving her to the ground, holding her there with her arms twisted and a knee to her spine.

Regina was near to fainting.

“Go,” Henry said, shoving at her embrace. “Go. I’m fine. Get Mom.”

Emma squeezed him tightly once more before pushing him into Aurora and sprinting across the smooth surface to skid gracelessly into Regina, knocking her down into a tangle of wings. She grinned. “Hey.”

Regina smiled absently, bemused. “Hey.”

“Are you okay?”

Regina inhaled deeply, her chest pressing up into Emma. “I’m not sure,” she admitted softly. “I feel strange. And there’s something rather heavy on top of me.” Emma grinned and shifted, but Regina held her in place. “No, you stay. I like you where you are.”

Emma carefully studied her face, trying to see if the fissures were still there. “You look okay,” she said, doubtfully, not liking how pale Regina was, how ashen the whites of her eyes were. Her energy was low and flickering like a candle.

An inhuman mental screech interrupted Emma’s perusal, and she and Regina both yanked around to watch in horror as Samyaza twisted his sword in Tamiel’s chest, leaving it there as she fell to her knees on the ground, both hands wrapped uselessly around the embedded hilt. He paced back two steps and laughed over the constant keening. “Weak. You always were.” He picked up her spear and twirled it between his hands as he strode confidently towards Emma and Regina. “Never had the guts to stand on your own. And now -”

A wave of light hit him from behind, a split second before his sword clattered to the ground. He gasped and dropped the spear, fingers scrambling at his own body, shedding armor left and right as light began to shine from his face and chest. With a sickening squelch, Tamiel’s face began to press outwards from his, parting sticky dark energy that clung to her features like tar.

Aurora shielded Henry’s eyes. Emma wished someone would shield her eyes; Tamiel was yanking herself through Samyaza’s body inch by inch and they were both screaming in pain. “This is so gross. And weird. Very weird. Very gross and weird.”

Regina chuckled softly at her babbling but then flinched in pain. Dark spots identical to the darkness being pulled out of Samyaza were pooling and oozing from her skin, and Mulan suddenly made a sound of disgust, shifting her weight to free up one hand to wipe the darkness leaking from Cora onto her pant leg. “Oh, shit, is she killing him?” she uttered in disbelief.

With a final cry of pain, Tamiel fell to the ground in front of Samyaza. Tar clung to her in spots, on her cheeks and throat and clotting in the wound on her chest. She crawled forward and collapsed, getting her fingers around her spear. Samyaza was thin. Emma could see through him. Tamiel weakly tried to raise her spear, but couldn’t.

Then, with a huff of effort, Regina pushed against Emma’s shoulder to her feet and stumbled with drooping, heavy wings to take the spear. “I made my choice,” she said, struggling to keep her voice audible. “So fuck off.”

She didn’t throw the spear very hard, but she didn’t have to. It bit into Samyaza’s chest and through before sticking. Pinned like a bug on a specimen card Samyaza scrambled weakly at it with his hands but couldn’t even grip it. He backed away and began to slip out of the plane. Cora wrenched away and scrambled to follow, barely making it into his arms before they both disappeared.

Tamiel stood, took two steps away from Regina, and choked, vomiting up a wave of foul-smelling, dark bile that shone like an oil slick. Hands on her knees, she continued to dry-heave pitifully.

Regina leaned against the spear like a crutch and looked at Emma, a weak smile flickering onto her lips. “I don’t feel all that great,” she observed mildly, flickering in and out visibly.

“Mom!” Henry wrapped his arms around her waist and held tight.

At his touch, she solidified and some color returned to her skin. “Henry. Are you all right?”

He nodded against her stomach. “Can we go home now?”

Regina glanced at Emma, who reached out to touch the top of Henry’s head, flabbergasted that she was able to do so. “I don’t know, kid. I’m not sure how to get you both back safe.”

“I can,” Tamiel urked, squeezing both arms around her torso and holding her breath. “Just as soon as I -” She gagged again.

“Dude, is there something we can do?” Mulan asked, concerned but staying several paces away, well out of the splash zone. “I’ve never seen an archangel throw up before. I don’t really know the protocol.”

“I’m not an archangel, as you well know,” Tamiel corrected, and seemed to calm down with the distraction. “My spear, please?” Regina gingerly handed off the weapon, and replaced it with Emma’s hand, pulling her into her other side. Tamiel leaned against the spear and looked softly at Regina. “You know what you chose.”

Regina’s jaw tightened, her grip on Emma becoming almost painful. “I... yes.”

Tamiel smiled. “You’re very brave.”

Regina’s eyes were spilling over with tears, but when Emma reached to wipe them away she jerked her head back. “Will I... no. I suppose not.” She inhaled, and unexpectedly turned her head to capture Emma’s lips in a fierce kiss that Emma felt all the way to her toes. She lingered, her eyes closed and her forehead pressed to Emma's temple, and then turned back to Tamiel. “Okay.”

Tamiel limped forward, and closed her wings around them.

* * *

 


	24. Chapter 24

* * *

 

Being re-inserted into linear time was jarring, and it took Emma a few nauseous seconds to realize that she was no longer holding onto Regina or Henry, and was instead standing in the hallway, alone. She pressed her hands to her knees and listened until she could hear their hearts beating in their rooms. Both hearts were slow and steady. They were asleep. Emma was too exhausted to snoop further, and she knew, somehow, that Tamiel was outside waiting for her.

She meandered her way down the stairs and to the apple tree, looking up to where Tamiel was perched, one leg dangling and the other hugged to her chest. “You’re still here.” Tamiel smiled briefly. Her eyes were purpled as if she’d been punched in the nose and Emma wasn’t sure she’d ever seen an angel look so exhausted. “Why don’t you go Home? Raphael would fix you, wouldn’t he?”

“Rafe can wait.” Tamiel shifted, straightening her back. She still had a hole in her tunic, and a trace of shadow in her energy beneath it. She needed to be healed. “I’ve had worse.” She held out her hand and pulled Emma up into the branches with her. “I’ll stay here until... for a little while.”

“Is it not over? Is Samyaza going to come back?” Emma wasn’t quite as at home in trees as Tamiel apparently was, but she finally settled on a branch above her, both of them facing towards the kitchen window.

“Probably not.” She glanced over just in time to catch Emma’s skeptical expression, and raised an eyebrow at the criticism. “The last time we fought like that was thousands of years ago, when he came for me after our Fall. We fought about the Nephilim then, too. I guess we’ll always fight about the Nephilim.”

Emma took a deep breath and asked a risky question. “Why are you so against them? Regina is...”

“She’s amazing,” Tamiel nodded. “They all are. They’re impossible.”

“So why -”

“We’re not of this plane,” Tamiel mused, holding up her hand and fading the illusion of physicality until all she was was angelic brightness. “It seems like I shouldn’t even have to say it, but this, all of this, it’s different for us. It’s something we teach ourselves to be around, to mimic, but we’re never more than coping.” She shook her hand out and the skin came back to it. “Nephilim are stuck. Half them. Half us. Both. Neither.”

“Regina is -”

“She’s strong. And she had a very attentive guardian when she was young. If nothing ever changed, she might have been able to hold it together for a while longer.” The sun peaked over the treeline, and Tamiel tilted her head back to regard it peacefully. “I’ll never get tired of seeing that. It goes away, it comes back, it goes away.” It was always bright in the City.

“So, what happened to Regina was my fault,” Emma surmised after a few moments of silence.

Tamiel hummed. “Not your fault. I mean, you did it, but you didn’t know. It’s not something that you guardians would normally worry about. You’re not powerful enough to make Nephilim.”

“You are.” A convulsive shudder ran through Tamiel’s wings, making the tree shiver. “Maybe you never would, but you could.”

Tamiel nodded stiffly. “But, see, the problem is that Nephilim can’t...” She scowled and shook her head. “It’s hard to explain. Nephilim are like oil and water. Except the water spends all its time just trying to stay mixed, because there’s not enough of it to exist on its own, when all the oil wants to do is go find other oil.”

Emma propped her chin on her hand. “That’s a terrible metaphor. Are we supposed to be oil?”

Tamiel chuckled. “You’re in love with Regina. She’s in love with you. Even if you hadn’t been physical - even if you weren’t an angel - there’s an energy exchange there.”

“Regina’s oil and water were balanced. And then I came and added more oil.”

“See, it was an excellent metaphor.” Tamiel tipped into Emma’s shoulder playfully and nearly knocked her off the tree.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Emma realized after a long, nearly comfortable silence. “Why are you still here?”

The content expression faded from Tamiel’s face. She tipped her chin forward, pointing with it towards the house. Emma followed her gaze and grinned happily. Regina stood in the kitchen window, already dressed in a white silk blouse, looking out at the sunrise as she filled the coffee pot with water. Emma reached for her... and Regina shut off the sink and turned her back to make coffee.

Emma fell out of the tree in her haste to get down; forgetting completely that she could teleport, she ran across the lawn and through the window. _Regina,_ she pushed loudly. _Regina!_

Regina didn’t so much as blink in response, retucking her shirt into her skirt and fussing with her earrings as the coffeemaker gurgled. “Henry!” she called upstairs. “Henry, wake up! You’ll be late for school!” When the house remained silent, she scowled fondly and headed for the stairs.

Emma shifted belatedly, to get out of the way, but Regina passed right through her shoulder. Emma barely even felt it. _What’s wrong with me?_ She reached down into her own energy and pulled up as much as she could, reaching for Regina again. The effort made her head hurt but she finally made contact and reeled back.

Regina felt like any other human to her.

She couldn’t hold onto the contact for very long, because as with any human who wasn’t her charge, it wasn’t a natural connection, and Emma was weak with panic. Henry wandered into the room in school clothes, and she leaped onto him, pushing into his mind and staying there until she could calm down enough to realize that it had worked.

Regina slid his plate in front of him and he tentatively picked up his fork. “You okay, Mom?”

“Of course, sweetie. Just a little tired. I don’t think I slept very well last night.”

_Ask about me,_ Emma urged. He absorbed the words but didn’t respond to them as such. Emma dug her fingers into the counter and looked wildly from one to the other. _Henry, ask about me._

Henry tipped his head. “Is... do you...” He squinted critically at Regina’s face.

Regina hummed and turned to fill her coffee mug. “Do I what?”

Henry’s eyes swept over her back, his brow furrowing. _Yes_ , Emma chanted. _Yes. Remember the -_ a mental hand clamped down over her and Tamiel gently wafted onto the counter.

_No, Emma,_ she chastised, reaching out to touch Henry’s forehead. _It was just a dream,_ she murmured into him, and then waited until the words sank fully into his skin before letting go.

Emma sobbed, her hands flying to her mouth to cover the sound. “How could she forget me?”

Tamiel wrapped her hands around the edges of the counter, bracing herself between her arms. “She had to choose. She chose Henry. So now we have to honor her choice. That’s free will.”

“ _Fuck free will,_ ” Emma growled, wrapping her arms around ribs and digging her fingers into her sides.

“You don’t mean that,” Tamiel said, not without sympathy.

“No,” Emma admitted with a sniff, rocking back and forth in place in the doorway. Tamiel didn’t seem in a hurry to continue, sitting there quietly and waiting for Emma to work her way out of her tears. Henry ate his breakfast and ran from the table to get his books; he set his fork down too hastily and it slid off the edge of the counter. Emma reacted without thinking, reaching to catch it, but her hand refused to solidify even a little bit and it clattered to the ground.

“Back to normal.” Tamiel watched as Emma tried to pick up the fork, her fingers passing through it over and over. “Nephilim make it easier for us to affect material things. It’s the difference between fording a river and walking across a bridge.”

Regina picked up the fork and put it and Henry’s empty plate into the dishwasher. Emma forced herself not to reach for her and fought with the realization that she couldn’t even smell her perfume anymore. “She’s human.”

“For now,” Tamiel confirmed, and held up a hand to stop Emma’s hope in its tracks. “She has this life, and she’ll live it out. There are other choices, after, but they aren’t ours to make.” She paused and bit her lip, speaking the next words slowly and with enough apology Emma knew to brace herself. “I wanted to let you say goodbye.”

Breathing shakily, but no longer crying, Emma watched as Regina pulled on her suit jacket and checked her appearance in the hall mirror. She saw the clock over her shoulder and scowled, yelling for Henry to hurry up.

He clattered down finally, tugging his scarf and backpack into agreement, and he and Regina headed down the sidewalk together. Halfway to the mailbox, Henry reached for her hand, and Regina wrapped their fingers together with a loving smile.

Emma reached for Henry’s other hand, but Tamiel stopped her.

“It’s time to go, Emma.”

Emma walked a few steps after them, eyes as wide as possible as she tried to commit every inch of them to her memory, and then she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. _This is the right thing,_ she told herself, trying to believe it. She held out her hand and felt Tamiel’s long, cool fingers slide between hers.

* * *

 


	25. Chapter 25

* * *

When she opened her eyes, it was to darkness.

She and Tamiel were standing in the yellow light of a streetlamp, and it was night, and raining a little bit, the streets wet and shining with headlights and storefronts. Emma looked around, not quite afraid but confused. “This isn’t the City.”

Tamiel let go of her hand to start walking down the sidewalk. “It’s _a_ city.” She pushed her hands into the pockets of a long grey overcoat and hunched her wings up as if the rain could affect them. Emma had no choice but to follow, tugged along by her need for angelic connection, like a puppy on a leash. The weakness made her angry, and she dug her heels in, pulling until Tamiel stopped walking and turned, standing in the light of a bodega’s windows. “What?”

“Why did you take me from Henry if it wasn’t to take me home?”

“I’ll tell you when we get there,” Tamiel dismissed, turning and resuming her path. “I don’t want you to overthink it.” She squinted around at buildings and street signs, muttering to herself.

Emma followed her gaze and frowned. “Dorchester Avenue. We’re in Boston?” She lingered too long, squinting up at the skyline, trying make out the shape of the Hancock in the clouds, and had to trot to catch up. Tamiel was walking quickly even if she didn’t seem all too sure of where she was going.

“I’m so bad at modern cities,” she grumbled. “Which way is Ashmont Street?”

“That way,” Emma pointed automatically. “Like a block over.” She paused, her finger still outstretched. “Wait.”

“We can’t wait,” Tamiel replied, jumping off the curb and trotting across the street, heedless of cars in the way of the incorporeal. “We’re on a timeline.”

“Why are we in Boston? I haven’t been to Boston since...”

Tamiel cut her a look out of the corner of her eye and thinned her lips against speaking. Emma took a deep breath and held it to forestall a panic attack. When her steps slowed, Tamiel grabbed her by her wrist and pulled. “Don’t make me do this,” Emma muttered through numb lips. “I don’t want to see it.”

Tamiel squeezed her wrist comfortingly. “Yes, you do.”

“Let me go.” Emma jerked her arm, but Tamiel was stronger and pushed her to the fenced end of the alley. Emma tried to bolt but a sudden twist of energy dropped her to her knees and rendered her unable to get up.

She looked up and saw herself on the ground, shaking as the voltage from a taser coursed from her thigh into her bones. She struggled to get up but she couldn’t separate them, the body from the ground and the body against the fence, and she’d forgotten how much tasers hurt. Tamiel meandered forward, unseen, and watched with a vague look of sympathy as the bail jumper Emma had been chasing yanked the taser bolts out of her thigh. Emma grunted as the pain phantomed again underneath the ripped parts of her jeans.

“I don’t want to see this,” she begged, tears running down her eyes, her hands already pressed against her sternum in anticipation. “Please don’t make me see this. Why are you doing this? I thought you were good.”

“I made a mistake once,” Tamiel remarked mildly, as if she had not heard. She waved her hand and the sounds of the city became muffled; she’d changed time for them, sped them up so that the rest of the alley seemed slow, long seconds between human heartbeats. “I paid for that mistake for five thousand years. Do you know how long five thousand years is, Emma?”

Emma sobbed, no longer sure of anything, not sure what answer she was supposed to give.

Tamiel sighed and looked down at Emma’s body, which had a hand raised in front of her face and was trying to make electrocuted legs work faster. “You never asked me the most important question, you know.” She walked back to Emma and picked her up by her jacket, walking her the five feet to her former body. She pushed Emma down into her body, jaw tight with the effort of making it fit.

“What are you doing?” Emma held her head up and refused to let it go in.

Tamiel looked into her eyes. “I won’t pay another five thousand years. I’m going to do things right this time.” She finally got Emma’s hands to fit together and shifted, beginning to stand and shoving hard on Emma’s forehead.

Emma felt hope flutter up into her chest, struggling with her pain and fear as her mind merged with the human one. “She won’t remember me. I won’t remember her.”

Tamiel smiled and laughed softly. “I sincerely doubt that’s going to matter.” She walked to the bail jumper, ran her fingers along his still arm.

“What was the question?” Emma asked hurriedly, feeling time beginning to move back into normal and knowing that it meant she didn’t have much more of it.

Tamiel gave her a brief, proud smile before she took a deep breath and slid into the bail jumper. “Why do we fall, Emma?” he asked, and as time resumed Emma’s body completed the flinch it had committed to. The gun cracked loudly in the dark alley, echoing all the way up the sides of the buildings.

Emma had her eyes squeezed shut, waiting for the bullet to slam into her body, and instead felt a spray of brick fragments against her face. Unable to believe her luck, she kept her arms over her head and didn’t move, even after she heard the shout from the window above and the sound of her bail jumper’s boots fleeing the alley.

 _Pick yourself up,_ a voice whispered into her mind.

Writing it up to the effects of shock, Emma nonetheless obeyed, using the cracks in the rough brick to pull herself up and get her still-shaking legs underneath her. Shifting her weight and flexing her oddly sore back, she pushed her hands into her pockets and went to meet the beat cops arriving at the end of the alley.

Then she stopped, went back, and touched her fingers to the bullet hole in the wall. She took a long, shaking breath as she realized just how close she had come to dying.  _And only a week before my birthday, too._

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end.
> 
> I did it.
> 
> Thank you guys for coming with me on this.


End file.
